18.51: So You Wanna Play With Format?

Are you interested in experimenting with different writing forms? Do you want to try an unusual or different way of writing? Well this week, we have an episode dedicated to non-traditional formats for writing. 

In this episode, we think about experimental short fiction from the point of view of publishing and writing. DongWon shares about the incredible success of their publishing of .. Why short stories might be the perfect place for new ideas. 

We talk about second-person narratives, epistolaries, footnotes, and stories written as research papers. When does it make sense to use a non-traditional format for a story, what should you know as you do it, and who exactly decided on those traditions anyway?

Homework: 

Take a scene from a story you've written or are working on (maybe from NaNoWriMo!) and put it into a new format. What did you learn in the process?

Thing of the Week: 

These Vital Signs: A Doctor's Notes on Life and Loss in Tweets by Sayed Tabatabai 

Liner Notes: 

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

Love, Death, and Robots (Netflix) 

Bite Size Halloween (Hulu)

Credits: Your hosts for this episode were Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. It was produced by Emma Reynolds, recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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