Our guest on the last episode of the Secrets of Story podcast, children’s author Jonathan Auxier, got off on a lengthy tangent. We had to cut it for time, but then we decided to make that tangent its own episode!

And so today, in Episode 30, Jonathan explains his insightful metaphor about how genre is “like hamburgers.” It goes to some interesting places! Along the way we apply his idea to Alien, Sweeney Todd, and more. And then towards the end I talk about the connections between Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” and the soundtracks to Alien and Star Wars. Listen here:

A brand-new episode of our Secrets of Story podcast is up! I’m enjoying making ridiculous graphics for each episode. I fully intend to retroactively make a graphic for each and every episode, which infuriates Matt. In a series of furious texts he said, “I really don’t want you to make 29 of these. My face is not my brand . . . I didn’t become a podcaster to have my face out there! I’m not a show dog!” I find this reaction strangely satisfying. To see the graphics for all the episodes, check out the rejuvenated Secrets of Story Twitter feed.

But before we get into the podcast, a few announcements. As you probably know, my new speculative thriller Dare To Know is coming out September 14, 2021. Please pre-order it here.

Shelf Awareness ran a great review on Dare To Know, accompanied by an interview with me. Find out which parts of the book are inspired by improv guru’s Del Close’s death-visions, a baffling cab ride I took with my wife, and why I dread December 19, 2046!

But hey, you might not even have to pay for your copy of Dare To Know . . . Goodreads is running a giveaway of fifty advance reader copies. Enter their free drawing by July 31, 2021 and see if you get lucky.

Now, onto the Secret of Story podcast episode! Kidlit author Jonathan Auxier (The Night Gardener, Sweep, the new Fabled Stables series, and more) returns for a fourth time for this one:

In this episode, Jonathan floats his idea that writers generally go through three distinct stages of writing a story: first you’re writing to please yourself (the “author draft”), then you’re revising to perfect the story itself (the “artifact draft”), and finally you’re revising to take the audience’s reactions and sensibilities into account (the “audience draft”). Matt and I love this idea, and we tease out its implications. What if you do the steps in a different order? (Bad idea.) What if you’re giving (or receiving) notes appropriate to one stage when the process is in a different stage? (It could derail you, even if they’re good notes.)

Jonathan’s a smart cookie, and always worth listening to. I have to say, this is one of my favorite ideas that have come up in the course of the podcast, reconciling my belief in the primacy of one’s personal vision and Matt’s insistence that the audience must always come first.

Find more information about this episode, and to join the discussion, check out Matt’s post.

I’m in the news! Austin Gilkeson interviewed me for the Japanese Consulate’s E-Japan Journal about how my time in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) inspired me for The Order of Odd-Fish and Dare To Know, as well as my other experiences in Japan. Read it here.

Okay, I know I’m posting these podcast episodes a little out of order, but roll with me here. Matt and I had author Lou Anders on our Secrets of Story podcast in a big two-parter to talk about his own systems and insights into storytelling. We meant for there to be only one episode, but Lou had so many smart points to make, we brought him back for two episodes!

Lou is the author of the Thrones and Bones trilogy, Once Upon a Unicorn, and Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon. In episode 26, he dropped by our podcast to offer his own system of how to polarize characters.

Now, over on his blog, Matt has come up with his own system that broadly classifies characters as head, heart or gut (or permutations thereof). In Lou’s alternative system, he separates characters into four pairs: protagonist / antagonist, mentor / bad example, true believer / skeptic, and thinker / feeler. He illustrates with examples from Star Wars, Big Hero Six, and Avengers, and we test out his theories on Harry Potter and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Can Lou’s character archetypes help you? I think there’s a quite a bit of truth in it. Lou is a smart guy and is certainly worth listening to:

For reference, here are Lou’s eight archetypes and how they shake out in different examples:

You can join the lively discussion about this episode in the comments section of Matt’s post about this episode.

But Lou’s not done with us yet! Matt and I have him back for the next episode, Episode 27, in which Lou explains how, in many stories, the hero passes through four stages: Orphan, Wanderer, Warrior, and Martyr. Will Matt and I buy it?

Bonus: Lou tells a great ghost story about when he was living at James Thurber’s old house as an artist-in-residence!

Follow and participate in the discussion about this episode in Matt’s post. In this discussion, it comes out that I don’t really like the term “Martyr” for the last quarter of the story. A commenter suggests “Mensch” instead, which I vastly prefer.

For reference, here’s how Lou’s system breaks down:

What do you think? Lou’s insights might not apply to every single story, but I can think of many, many stories that do fit his theories. I’d be eager to have Lou on the podcast again sometime. I like his analytical way of thinking through the nuts and bolts of storytelling, which of course is what Matt’s and my podcast is all about!