Story Genius, Part II: External Gauntlets & Internal Growth: An In-Depth Exploration

Episode Summary

Episode Transcript

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Hey, everybody. It's that book that's been on your TBR list for so long, you feel like you've pretty much already read it. Blake Reichenbach, back again this week to finish up Story Genius, Lisa Cron's amazing book all about story and how to craft compelling novels that you're excited to write and readers are excited to read.

So in the last episode, we talked about parts one and two of story of genius, which are all about laying the background, laying the foundation of your protagonist, and figuring out what it is that you want to write about, who's the right person to tell that story, meaning who's the right protagonist? And then starting to figure out what are the pieces of your protagonist that you need to understand as the writer, so that when you go in to tell your story, you're able to connect everything back to your protagonist growth trajectory that occurs over the course of the novel.

Well, in part three, Cron does this really great job of starting to pivot away from, hey, let's flesh out your character's backstory to pulling your character into the present and starting to scaffold out this really interesting structure for how we can approach the plot, which, again, if you want to be. I was going to say pedantic, but that's not quite the right word. I was going to say, if you want to be accurate, let's go with that. That's probably the better way to describe it if you want to be accurate. Story and plot, not the same thing. That is something that Cron is really adamant about, really specific about throughout the course of this book, where plot is referring to the sequence of events occurring throughout the book, whereas story is more about that internal growth and evolution and personal pulsion that moves a character throughout the story, throughout the narrative, that's based on their worldview, that's based on how they are interpreting and responding to and influencing the elements of the plot.

In part three of Story Genius, that's what we start to look at is the merging of plot and story. And as with parts one and two of the book, Cron does not skip on the homework in this section. You know, I think as a younger writer, I picked up a lot of writing books that had this ethos of, oh, just sit down and let the words flow. You know, find your muses, create your writing routine, and just show up and the words will come out. And maybe that's why there's such a prevalence in panting as a writing practice, but it's so interesting and so cool and also really challenging to come to a book like Story Genius, where that is not at all what Cron is doing. Cron has given us homework all through parts one and two, and the homework continues into part three.

Now, when I sat down and spoke with Cron, which I'm going to be releasing that interview in the next episode, but when I sat down and spoke with Cron, I asked her about that element of expecting writers to do so much work before they write a novel. And she pushed back on that question. And essentially, I'm going to oversimplify her response. Definitely listen to the next episode, because I think she says it so much more elegantly than I'm going to while summarizing her words. But she essentially says, you know, this is the work of writing a novel. This is how you go about writing a really good novel. And we chatted about it some more, and I was particularly curious about writers who are also parents and who have full time jobs and who are caretakers. You know, people who don't have a ton of time to devote to their writing often have this feeling like if they're not sitting down and drafting a thousand words per day, they feel like they're not meeting their own expectations or the expectations that others might have of writers.

And what Cron pointed out is that most writers nowadays are full time employees and parents and caretakers, sometimes a combination of those three, because the reality is that, like, that's the economy that we live in. That's. Those are the demands that writers have. And so she doesn't see this process, all of this work that goes into preparing to write a novel as taking away from the writing practice or as separate from the writing process itself.

Instead, she sees it as something that enables writers to be able to write more productively when it is time to sit down and actually do the writing. So with all of that said, with all of that established, let's dive in and take a look at the chapters that are in this section of the book and talk through those, and then we'll come back to a little bit more on some of the craft elements that that Cron brings up throughout part three of the book.

So I think there's a lot to unpack there as well. So, in part three, the title for this section, is "creating an external gauntlet to spur your protagonist's inner struggle," which I love the way that she describes that conceit of the section. Right. It's an external gauntlet, but it's ultimately all about your protagonist inner struggle. We didn't spend parts one and two talking all about your protagonist's past, their backstory, the machinations of their soul, just for you to forget about that third rail, chapter nine. We start with the opening of your novel and of the Story Genius blueprint system here.

It's really interesting because Cron basically hands us a tool that is to be used throughout the rest of the book and throughout the rest of the Story Genius process, or what I'll probably refer to as just like the Story Genius method. And that is the storygenius blueprinting system. If you want to head over to connect howdycuriosity.com resources I've created a shareable story blueprinting system, Google Doc, that you can go in, make a copy, check it out, but it's essentially a two by two grid that has you document what is the alpha point that you're trying to make in each scene that occurs throughout your novel, and then you track your scenes in this, like, before and after pattern. And it's quite interesting because if you're following the story blueprinting system, you're going to have a really clear cause and effect relationship between everything.

I think when I first started toying with scene cards and thinking through how to use scene cards effectively, one of the things that I found a little bit confusing is a the way that she has the scene cards laid out. When I see a two by two grid, my mind thinks like, top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right is the order by which I want to process the information. But the scene cards are meant to be like before, after, or cause effect. So it's a top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right. When you get in and look at the scene cards, that will make so much more sense, I promise you. But keep that in mind. That is my pro tip. If you try and fill them out, top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right, you will confuse yourself. It is top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right. But that out of the way. I think the other challenge there is like, when you're just getting started with these types of scene cards that are rooted in a cause and effect. It's really easy to fall into this trap of making your manuscript feel very predictable.

So a happens, then b happens. So c has to happen, which means d has to happen immediately, which means e has to happen. And as I was starting to play with scene cards for my own manuscript and fleshing them out, I was doing exactly that. I was making it so that, like, everything was happening in the immediate chronological succession and I was starting to hate it. And so I do want to say that, like, even though the Story Genius blueprinting system is introduced very early on in part three, I do kind of wish that a little bit more time was spent discussing how to work with it, I think, in more detail and how to practice with it, because as you start to develop your scenes and think about how they all fit together and stitch together, you kind of have to keep going through this process of zooming in and out and in and out and thinking about how, yes, there's a cause and effect through line over the entire course of your novel, but a coming back to that third rel, your character's growth is not going to be instantaneous. They're still going to be, you know, anchored in their misbeliefs and their established characterization for a while. And a cause that happens early in the novel may not have a clear effect until later in the novel.

So it's important that the effect remains, but it doesn't have to be an immediate effect. So I think that's kind of the one caution that I would throw out when it comes to the novel blueprinting system that gets introduced in chapter nine. Now, interestingly, chapter nine is all about the opening of the novel as well as the blueprinting system, but significantly more time is spent discussing the blueprinting system than the actual opening of the novel. So I think what's really interesting about the way that Cron structured the previous sections of the book is that by the time you get to chapter nine, the actual opening of your novel is almost an assumed point, right?

Like, you have to have already identified what is the problem or what is the change in normal, change in routine that's going to set your novel in motion. And she does make some really interesting points about the caliber of problem and what types of problems are actually going to sustain a manuscript over the entire course of a novel. And there's some discussion of, like, you know, an opening involving a problem, like an earthquake or a natural disaster may seem really big and dramatic and gripping, but ultimately, is that something that's going to propel your core plot, your core story, your core problem for an entire manuscript? Or is that going to be like just one kind of flash in the pan?

But again, the bulk of the time in this section is spent about the or, excuse me, is spent discussing the Story Genius blueprinting system, how the cause and effect logic works, and setting you up to start using these cards to build out each scene of your novel. One final note on the scene cards is don't conflate scenes with chapters, sometimes youre scenes and chapters may align really well. Other times they may not.

So I think as writers, especially as people who are aiming to write novels, it's tempting to want to think in chunks along the lines of chapters. But keep in mind, chapters may contain multiple scenes. Your scene cards are not necessarily chapter cards. Keep each scene focused on a specific point. Do not try and spread your scene cards too thin and cover an entire chapter. Otherwise, you will lose a bit of detail, lose a bit of color. That will make it harder to actually go in and do the writing when it's time to use that scene card. Okay, enough about introducing scene cards.

Let's turn the page, get into chapter ten, which, interestingly, we jump directly from the opening of the novel to the real aha. Moment. Where will your story end? So rather than thinking about the end of the story as the actual conclusion of the novel, so, like, you know, the final scene, the final chapter, Cron challenges us to envision what will happen when your protagonist has their realization or their aha. Moment that represents the culmination of their goal, their misbelief, and the trajectory that they've been on throughout the novel. Over the course of Story Genius, she has this example of a client she's working with named Jenny, and the story she's writing about a woman named Ruby who steals a dog. And in this chapter, she gives an example of Jenny's story about Ruby and how the external plot point or the external plot events the story lead Ruby to realize how she's going to finish her script and have her flash of insight about her relationship with Henry all along. So, you know, it's this point where there's still more novel to come, there's still that conclusion and how everything gets wrapped up to come.

But is the moment where the protagonist transformation is complete and the sort of growth trajectory that's been set in motion by their misbelief and their worldview and their problems all colliding. It's where that kind of reaches its conclusion. And what really threw me for a loop, frankly, with this chapter is Cronkite advocates throughout Story Genius. And at one point, I believe a little bit later in the book, says quite explicitly that she is all for writing the novel in chronological order and having your scenes developed like, or fully fleshed out, I should say, in chronological order. And so it was a bit jarring to go from, hey, here's a chapter where you're writing your opening scene using this blueprinting system. Ta da, by the way. Now you're going to write your... your aha moment, your closing scene for this story arc. But the way that she fleshes it out and the way that she justifies it is like you can anticipate that this scene's probably going to change.

It's probably going to evolve and grow as your understanding of the story continues to evolve and grow. But the goal is to basically give yourself a target to understand approximately where you're going. For Chron, drafting the ending scene is not an act of finality. She anticipates that it will be refined and reworked several times, but she advises having it sculpted as an act of solidifying your novel's direction.

Basically, as you're going through the process of fleshing out all of your scenes between your opening and your conclusion, her guidance is know where that arc is headed. So as you're thinking about how your character is evolving over time, know how that should be happening, what is it that they are growing toward? And she does this pretty convincingly by explaining that, and I'm paraphrasing here, but roughly, by explaining that no character has, like, a fixed destiny, and your protagonist could grow and evolve and change in a million different ways, an infinite number of different ways. And so as you're going through your story and thinking about how they're responding to and how they're reacting to and how they're thinking about all of the different events and challenges that come up within the plot, knowing how they're ultimately going to resolve their story will help you decide what type of reaction and influence is going to make the most sense for them.

And to me, I think there are two books I read within the last, I guess, year or two that kind of exemplify doing this really well and then doing it not so well. So the one that I think does it really well is RF Kwong's the Poppy War series, which I don't want to give spoilers, but over the course of that trilogy, you see the protagonist evolving, and she is a complicated protagonist, to say the least. And there are so many cases throughout the novels where you're like, why the hell is she making this decision? This is so bad. She is an idiot. I hate her so much. And by I hate her so much, you really mean, I love her. She's horrible and she's the best. But when you get to the end of the novel and you know how that protagonist story concludes, it kind of makes sense why she was making the decision she was making over the course of the novel. And so you see her resolution and you're kind of like, okay, yeah, that's how her story was always going to end.

Inversely, there was a book that I read on vacation, I guess, a year or two ago, probably two summers ago, called. I think it was Submit Your Bugs Here. And the premise was really fascinating. There were parts of the novel that I really liked, but the protagonist's evolution was just odd. And I don't really know how the protagonist evolved from the beginning of the novel to the end of the novel. And there were places in the middle of the book where his reactions just felt so uncharacteristic, like he's this pretty mundane guy and somewhat soft spoken and very, like, logical, I would say. And then there are just random parts in the middle of the book where he's, like, basically screaming and throwing a tantrum, and it comes out of nowhere and it just feels like, why is he reacting this way? What is happening? I get that he's stressed, but there has been nothing established so far that would inform why this is happening.

And so I bring that example up because as I'm thinking about Cron's premise of knowing who your character is, knowing where they're starting, knowing where they're ending, and using that to anchor how they react and how they evolve over the course of the novel, it kind of makes me think back to that novel and wonder, like, did the author originally have a different ending in mind? Was this character's arc supposed to be something else? Were they writing it in a different direction and then decided to bring it back in this other direction before they finished? It was just confusing. So I think for me, having the Poppy War trilogy and Submit Your Bugs Here here as polar opposites for this example of how understanding your stories end and your character's evolution arc in mind can help you contextualize the decisions they make, how your plot evolves, that all makes sense to me. I think.

Again, those two particular novels have given this some weight, giving us some validity in my own writing process. From chapter ten, surprise, surprise, we move on to chapter eleven, talking about building your blueprint, how to keep track of all the moving parts. This chapter was fairly short, fairly quick, but really interesting if you like logistics. If you're a spreadsheet nerd like me, I think you will find this chapter really enjoyable. It's basically Cron's approach for organizing all of the scenes that you're developing as you are working on your novel. You know, she basically acknowledges that as you're building out your novel and your story, there are going to be scenes and characters and ideas you have that maybe get developed into actual parts of the novel, maybe don't.

And so she introduces this process of essentially creating folders to organize all of that information so that as something becomes relevant, as you need something, you can just kind of move it through the pipeline and get value out of it when you need it, put it out of the way when you don't need it. If you've read Thiago Forte's building a second brain, it really reminds me a lot of the second brain systems that Forte outlines. But it's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. Again, it's quite hands on. So if you're using something like Google Docs or Scrivener, you do have to spend some time getting all of your folders set up and making sure you have some kind of cadence for grooming those folders and moving your individual scenes and your individual files across folders, depending upon how they're most relevant.

But again, pretty simple, pretty straightforward. And if you are a project management nerd like me, you're going to get a lot of value out of it. Up next, we go into chapters twelve and 13, which I want to talk about in unison because I think that they really flow into each other pretty well. So chapter twelve is titled going back to move forward, how to harvest the past, to set up the plot. And chapter 13 is story logic, making sure each what has a why. And in both of these chapters, what Cron is exploring is like the logic of the world that you are creating and the basis in reality for how your characters are interacting with that world. And I know that using terms like world, you're creating and interacting with the world might sound like I'm talking specifically about speculative fiction. I'm not. Even if you're writing literary fiction that is set in contemporary society and it's very familiar and doesn't have fantastical elements, you're still building a world, you're still creating characters and situations and, you know, plot points and conflicts that don't actually exist. And so in both of these chapters, Cron spends quite a bit of time talking about how to do that, how to take things that you have established, be it in the exercises and scenes that you wrote in parts one and two of the book, or in the background information that you've established for your various characters and your protagonists, and using that to anchor the story that you're creating in a sense of reality and basically making your story world feel lived in.

And in chapter 13, she takes that even deeper, where she's basically focusing on taking all of the ideas and concepts that you have in development and making sure that they're good fits for your manuscript as a whole. So it's one thing to go into your character's past and mine out these interactions that may have happened or experiences that they have had, and think through the general implications and what that may mean and how that could be applicable, but then also kind of holding those concepts up to the light and assessing whether or not those scenes and ideas as you're unearthing them are pertinent to your manuscript as it exists.

The basic method that she uses for this is a series of questions where she wants you to take these scenes or these concepts and ideas and ask, why does my plot need it to happen logistically? Why can it happen? Is it actually possible? And then finally, why would it happen, given your protagonist's inner struggle? So, you know, in summary, with these two chapters, it's again all about harvesting all of these context rich aspects of your character's experiences and figuring out, okay, from the way that my characters operate within the world that they live in, what is going to be realistic for my story world, and what can I leverage within my plot that is going to drive this story forward, that is going to make sense in this context, and that is going to be particularly relevant for my protagonist's inner struggle? And again, that final question about relevance to the inner struggle is always, always, always going to come up.

For Cron, it's that third rail that she will always come back to, because story is her thing. Now, in chapter 13, one of the points she makes that I want to sort of double-click on is the idea of letting go of scenes that don't serve the story, even if they're really interesting. And this one, this point resonated with me because as a speculative fiction writer, as a fantasy writer, I love world building. I love thinking through how cultures exist, how they interact with each other, what cultural practices may exist, what histories may exist, what political conflicts may exist. And I honestly would love to do a book that's just like info dumping, just an info dump about the socioeconomics and politics and history of a society that doesn't exist and religion, but, you know, that obviously doesn't serve the story, and it doesn't move things along at an engaging pace. And at one point, Cron even writes. While letting go of ideas that seem so promising at first blush can be painful, it's far easier at this stage than it would be later, when you've already become so accustomed to the idea you've been developing, that booting it would be like firing your best friend from the job she's wanted all her life, even though she has no aptitude for it, and everyone else in the office is threatening to quit unless you do something about it.

That's why it's essential to test every plot point for believability right out of the starting gate. The beauty of this is that by digging for the why, you also uncover more of the what that you need to move the story forward. By now, your mantra should be specifics beget specifics. So it was humbling to go into this chapter and be reminded that I can't just world build. I have to actually move the story forward, actually have to pull out the specific seeds that have elements that are pertinent to my protagonists, to the conflicts, to the protagonist in her struggles. Fine, I guess I'll write a novel and nothing. A pseudo history? I don't know. What would you even call a book that's just world building and info dumping? Who knows? Maybe one day if my books take off enough, I'll have a publishing house under my thumb and they'll let me publish one of those just world building, info dump books, and we'll figure out what that's called in the marketplace. Until then, we'll go ahead and jump into chapter 14.

We're getting close to the end of the book. There are only chapters 14 and 15 left. Chapter 14 is the secret to layer subplot storylines and secondary characters. Here, Cron opens the chapter by saying the problem is solely focusing on the main storyline. As you develop your story is that it soon becomes predictable and surprisingly flat, because such a narrow outlook flies in the face of what we were just discussing. Everything that happens, affects, and is affected by everything else. We are all connected, and very often those connections are precisely what reveal the why behind what's really going on. Okay, but clearly you can't develop everything that affects your protagonist, and by extension, everything her actions then set into motion. So what part of everything are you looking for? That's where subplot storylines and secondary characters come in, giving your novel the depth, scope and dimension needed to magically evoke the sensation of real life for your readers.

She discusses the processes for developing subplots out of external events in the novel and through secondary characters, keeping in mind that all subplots ultimately return to and resolidify the central plot. That I think is one of those sort of craft details that gets missed a lot in writing conversations, especially for writers who are coming into their manuscripts being really inspired by things like ensemble cast, video games, and anime, where it's really easy to let subplots and secondary characters take on such a life of their own that they overpower and overwhelm the novel. And then the novel kind of starts to shift. And part of me in the past would have said, but isn't that a good thing? Isn't it a good thing that a secondary character is so gripping and so engaging and so beloved that they kind of buoy up the rest of the novel? But I think the problem with that mentality and with that approach to writing is that it diffuses the focus of the novel and it makes your protagonist story that's supposed to be anchoring everything less compelling. And, you know, as a teenager, with some of the manuscripts that I would write, that was a big problem that I had where I had a protagonist who was pretty, pretty hollow.

He didn't have a lot going on in terms of a clearly defined internal struggle or internal problem. He just kind of stepped into a situation and was like, okay, cool, I guess I'm the protagonist now. Whereas some of the secondary characters were more well thought out and had a clearer sense of purpose. And as a young writer having that really sophomoric approach, I thought, oh, they're both equally important. They're kind of leading the story in tandem. But looking back on it, I think I should have been asking myself, but actually, whose story is it? Who's the better protagonist for this story? And going back to Cron's early chapters in part one, what story is it that I'm actually trying to tell, and why is it that I think he's my protagonist when she's the one who's, you know, really interesting, really engaging, has a clear sense of purpose, and he's kind of just. So, again, Cron has pretty clear methodologies for talking through subplot storylines and secondary characters and no surprises.

Lots of homework. Lots of homework for you to write out and think about which ones you're going to develop, how you're going to. To develop them, and of course, most importantly, how they're going to tie back into your central story and how they're going to move that central story along. Now here, I think if you remember my criticism of the first chapter in this section where, you know, we introduced the novel blueprinting system and things feel like they're too sequential and you have to sort of break them up. Here's where I think she finally sort of closes that gap and by introducing her approaches to subplot storylines and secondary characters. I think we start to get some of the elements and ingredients needed to break up that immediate sequential nature of the story cards, where it's not just a, then b, then c, then d, then e in this very predictable, linear fashion.

We start to see more diversity and who's involved, what's involved, what's happening while the central story is still being propelled forward. So I do sort of wish that maybe these chapters were rearranged or that the content was distributed a little bit differently so that those concepts were closer together. The concepts of having your scene cards and then having your plot elements. But overall, I still think that, like, by this point, if you're going through Story Genius, doing the exercises, starting to work with scene cards, putting together your folder system, like, you'll start to intuit some of those elements and some of those ingredients pretty well. Okay, finally, we get to chapter 15 to the end of the book. Chapter 15 is titled Writing Stories grow in spirals. As Cron closes out Story Genius, she focuses on giving writers the tools they need to combine all the pieces of the puzzle that she's been building. So far. She's established the methods needed for figuring out what makes a compelling story, crafting scenes that are rooted in story, layering on external plots, and integrating secondary characters and subplots.

Now, she shifts her focus to reminding readers of Story Genius, not of readers generally, how to stay the course as they make progress on their novels. You'll be so surprised when I say this, but her big emphasis is on bringing everything back to your stories. Why? How do you make everything come back to touching that third rail that is your protagonist's inner evolution? In this chapter, one of the things that she writes that really stood out to me is to win, your protagonist needs to react internally to everything that happens in the moment as he struggles to make sense of it, and so bend it to his advantage. This means he thinks about what is happening not in the abstract, not in long, rambling stream of consciousness musings, but with urgency in service of a decision that must be made right now. The rule is he can't notice or comment on anything, even if it's just a description of what someone is wearing, unless he then draws a strategic conclusion that affects what he's doing or how he interprets what's happening. And he must do this every minute of every day, just like we do. I found this quite curious.

At first,I was like, okay, but who's going to actually read a book where it's just a protagonist noticing and remarking on things. Okay, clearly I'm being a little bit hyperbolic. Just hang with me here. But, you know, I think her point stands super valid. Last week, actually, I was reading Leigh Bardugo's Hell Bent. It's the sequel to The Ninth House, sort of this, like, dark academia fantasy. Really, really good. Highly recommend both of those books. But I realized as I was reading that book that this is something that she does really well. You are inside Galaxy Stern, the protagonist's mind, constantly, and you see her interpretation of the events unfolding around her on basically every single page. And it doesn't feel heavy handed. It doesn't feel like it is overdone or like it's distracting from the narrative, and instead it feels like you are getting the inside scoop almost right. We're still in this third person point of view. You still have an outsider's perspective, but you can clearly see the workings of Alix's mind and can figure out how she's thinking about things. And see, you know, when she's putting on a facade, when she's scared, when she's uncertain, when she's confident, when she's brave. And, you know, Bardugo executes that really, really well. So I think if you're reading through Story Genius, you get to this chapter and you're thinking, like, what? Having my protagonist react internally to everything. That sounds horrible. Read some Leigh Bardugo. Read hell bent. She does that really, really well. Really great example to learn from there.

So as we come to the very final pages, Cron wraps up her book with a final two part commission. First, she says, always ask why of everything? And don't stop until you've chased it down to its most story specific flesh and blood. Why? So basically, keep peeling back those layers for every decision that your protagonist is making, for every event that is happening in your story, especially those, like, scenes that may pop in your mind that seem really cool at first or the characters that you think, oh, yeah, I want to write this character. Keep peeling back. Why? Why do they need to exist? Why are they relevant to the story? And then her second piece of advice is ask. And so of everything, what is the point? How does this move the story forward? How does each action or inaction hook into the scene? So I think if you're using the story cards that she creates or the novel blueprinting system, I should say, then I think this one will be fairly intuitive because you are prompted to fill out how everything hooks into the story and into the scene. That's going to follow. But if you're not using the blueprinting system, if you're being a little bit fast and loose with the Story Genius methods, then I think together these two elements of peeling everything back to its most story specific flesh and blood, why I and then asking the and so of everything, these two elements can create that spiral that propels you from the beginning of the novel to the end of the novel, especially if, like we talked about in one of the earlier chapters, you've already mapped out which ending that's going to be.

So we finally made it to the end of Story Genius. This is a book on writing unlike any book on writing that I have ever read. There was so much homework, so much work to do. Oh, my gosh, it took me so long to get through, but I'm glad that I did. It was genuinely an enjoyable read. I really, really enjoyed getting to meet and speak with Lisa Cron and get her just her, her energy, but her perspective on story and how she's evolved as a writer herself and how she's also arrived at this process. And for me as a writer, especially as we are entering the tail end of the year and I'm thinking about, you know, do I want to go for something like NaNowrimo this year? Do I want to, you know, really dive into my current manuscript this winter? Having this seed of Story Genius planted in my mind is so influential. It's genuinely reshaped how I am approaching my current manuscript and how I'm thinking about developing this project over time. So I think if you're a writer, if you're thinking about writing a novel or curious about all the work that goes into writing a novel, it is 1000% worth a read.

And definitely, definitely, definitely come back for the next episode where I sit down and talk to Lisa Cron herself and get some very zesty, very spicy opinions about writing and the craft of writing and story and politics and nanowrimo and people getting punched in throats, there is a lot that happens in that interview. You will not want to miss it. All right, folks, I need to go walk my dog, listen to an audiobook, and pretend that the weather is a little bit cooler. I am so done with this heat. Have a wonderful day.