Episode 10: How Reading Helps Your Writing Process

This is the first monthly installment of the Read Like A Writer book club reflections. 

Elizabeth and Stephanie, share their takeaways from genre-specific books they read for the month of January. Stephanie discusses a contemporary romance novel "Yours Truly" by Abby Jimenez. She emphasizes key takeaways related to chapter openings and closings, effective use of dialogue, and the art of showing, not telling. Elizabeth talks about "Untamed" by Glennon Doyle, focusing on the book's structure, particularly the use of vignettes, repetition of sentiments for impact, and a special sentence structure that involves presenting a scene, expressing emotions, and making a strong self-statement in three progressively shorter sentences. 

The discussion touches on how these insights can be applied to memoir and other genres. A Read Like A Writer workbook is also now available for download within the Inspired Writer Collective. Links can be found at the end of the show notes. In February, Elizabeth and Stephanie will be exploring character development and sense of place through Barbara Kingsolver's "Demon Copperhead". Links below can be used to join the book club only portion of our online community for access to the workbook, on-going chat discussion, and the live Zoom meeting.

Connect with us! Schedule a coffee chat with Elizabeth or Stephanie!

Join our email list for first to know information about weekly podcast episodes, writing aids, and upcoming offers!

To get more information about joining our Inspired Writer Collective or Read Like A Writer book club, click here.

If you prefer video versions of the podcast or want to leave a comment on this specific episode, you can locate all of them here on our YouTube channel.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome fellow writers to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast, your go to hub for all things writing. We're your hosts, Elizabeth and Stephanie. Whether you're a seasoned wordsmith or just dipping your quill into the ink well of creativity, we're absolutely thrilled to have you with us. Drawing from our experience in publishing diverse writing genres and the daily grind of showing up for yourself, we're here to be your writing companions. Expect insightful discussions, expert tips, and a dash of inspiration as we navigate the twists and turns of the writing journey together. So whether you're listening on your commute, during your writing session, or just relaxing at home, get ready for an immersive experience that celebrates the art and joy of writing.

Elizabeth: 0:49

Good morning, Stephanie.

Stephanie: 0:51

Good morning, Elizabeth. Oh my goodness. I'm so excited this morning. And thank you to the listeners. Last night I looked and we had 60 podcast downloads. And then this morning I got an email from Buzzsprout. It said 75. This is amazing.

Elizabeth: 1:06

That's so great. I love that people are listening and theoretically enjoying it. We would love to hear more of your comments about what you're liking, what you want to hear more about. Leave a review, anything that lets us know what it is you're liking. That's amazing. I just looked back at our win sheet where we track The things that we're seeing in our community and the growth that we're seeing, and we were at 50 downloads only five days ago. So that's 25 new downloads in five days. And, oh, that makes us feel so good. So thank you,

Stephanie: 1:42

everyone. Yes, thank you so much for listening, and we really hope, as Elizabeth said, that you're enjoying what you're hearing, and we like to keep it real and down to earth and let you hear what's on our minds about writing.

Elizabeth: 1:55

Right, we're in this process with you, fellow writers, and we want to support you in whatever way we can. One of those newer things that we've been doing and this is the first month of it is the book club. So that's today's topic. We're going to be talking about the genre specific books that Stephanie and I read this month. And we each are going to present three key takeaways that we had from each of the books that we read. Stephanie read a contemporary romance novel, and she's going to go first and talk about her three key takeaways, and then I read a memoir, and I will share my takeaways, but I encourage you to listen to all of them, despite your genre, because I can already tell you there's going to be overlap, no matter what your genre is within these things that we observed that we hope to apply to our own writing moving

Stephanie: 2:46

forward. Absolutely. This was an incredible exercise and one that I haven't really focused on before. And so I read Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez, which is a contemporary romance. And it's about second chances in love and discovering more about yourself and connection with others in a very authentic way. And I am a huge fan of Abby Jimenez, and if you've been listening to other episodes, you've probably heard me talk about her. And so I really wanted to look at her book because for me, writing contemporary romance, and it being my first time, she's one that I really look to as a true mentor. And Learning from her writing was so powerful in this read like a writer format because, of course, my experience has been writing more academic articles and nonfiction, and this shift to writing fiction and contemporary romance has been challenging for me. Which is why it was so helpful to dive into her book through this lens. And I was rereading it. So the first time I read it really as pure enjoyment. And of course, I couldn't like not enjoy it this time because she's so funny. There's so many laugh out loud moments in the book. I mean, the list could be very long for that. And I'm going to try to bring in a couple of those as I share my takeaways from this. So my three takeaways. We're looking at the chapter opening and closing dialogue. And showing, not telling. And so I'm going to start with chapter opening and closing. And the reason I picked this as one of my big takeaways is because in my own writing, I've really been struggling with how to start and how to finish my chapters. And so, one of the things as I was going through is that I noticed that She's one who I feel can break the rules a little bit because she's so established and we talked about this in our last, you know, episode about first chapters, but even in across all of her chapters, I mean, she does use dialogue to open which. is very effective in the way that she does it. She also uses very specific sentences to set the scene so that you know what's coming. And then in the closing, she does These very effective cliffhangers, whether it's a short sentence or a lengthy sentence for example one example using more of like an emotional closure to the chapter, she's ending the first chapter, the one character is having feelings around her upcoming closure of her divorce. And she's saying, and I'd be left with what was left of me. And that wasn't much. And so you're left like. Whoa, like just sitting there feeling that character's feelings and then you're like, Oh my goodness, what's going to happen next? And so then you want to keep that momentum up. You're

Elizabeth: 6:12

anticipating getting back to a chapter with that POV so that you can see like, all right, where is she at now? How is she going to come back from that? That's cool that she's already kind of hooked you into an investment in that character's, You know, path and development.

Stephanie: 6:29

Absolutely. And, you really get a feeling of where Brie is at that moment in the book. And then, you know, also closing with something that makes you wonder where. The other character, Jacob, he's going to this supply closet, which is kind of a point of kind of escaping from the chaos of the ER. And he's saying only when I got there, it wasn't empty. And you're like, Oh, who else is there? And it's kind of playing off her dynamic that she's set up between the two characters at first, where there's all this tension. And that cliffhanger, like who else is there? Is it, you know, is it Brie or is it someone else? Because it's not entirely clear. Like in his mind, he's like, I need to get away from her because this is just too much. It's just very simple. It's something that you might even think yourself. The very first opening line of the book is they're calling him Dr. Death. And so Again a powerful opening from a reader's perspective, you're like, okay, why, but from thinking about it as a writer, I'm like, wow, that is a strong line of dialogue and it's not even from the main character, it's from another character who's saying this to her and so yeah So just setting up those powerful opening and closings to the chapters was something that I was really diving into because I just find that Of course, from a writer's perspective, you want to hook your reader in, you want them to be invested, you want them to be curious, and you want them to keep going. And I know from having done so many read alouds when I was in the classroom as a teacher, that That's what really engages the students and other people when you're doing a read aloud where the author has used that approach with leaving that cliffhanger. So then, since I was just talking about dialogue, I'm going to jump into talking about the dialogue that Abby uses and one of the things that really struck me and the reason this stood out as a key takeaway from reading it as a writer is that the dialogue really propels the story forward. It keeps the momentum. She, of course, integrates paragraphs that allow for a pause. But really, it's. The interactions and conversations between the characters where you learn about aspects of the character's personalities and aspects of what they believe in or what they're invested in or who they are. And I found that to be really fascinating because sometimes you see that approach used in, you know, lengthy backstory or lengthy paragraphs to build up who a character is, but she effectively uses dialogue between characters, whether it's the main character with her brother and his health issues, and then, you know, the other character, Jacob, with his family. And he's got this big family. So you get this real sense in the way that they're all on speakerphone with him at one point and everybody's talking and giving him input and advice, but you really get a sense of his connection with his family, who he is as an individual, all through the dialogue. And another example of the way she starts a chapter is Brie is saying to her brother You move in with me or I call mom and so you're like Okay she's kind of reaching a breaking point with her brother not Investing with his health stuff. It's very clear in her use of dialogue and humor that she's aware of who her audience is. Because she references a popular, 80s movie where Brie and Jacob are on the phone, and he goes, I carried a watermelon. She's like, you carried a watermelon? And then he's like, yup, nobody puts baby in a corner, you know, from Dirty Dancing. And it just makes you crack up because, you know, popular references, but clearly relevant to the audience of these books,

Elizabeth: 10:49

you know, does she do that in each because I recall from the one I read there was a princess bride theme running Yes, they kept referencing the princess bride. Does she pick a different like Reference point for each book.

Stephanie: 11:01

I don't know if it's intentional or if it just happens I can't remember what comes up in the other books, but that was one of my favorite moments. Sort of relaxed energy between the two of them, even though the book starts out where there's a lot of tension. And then using a phone conversation helps with relaxing it. And she also really varies the length of dialogue. Some books I've read, I find that, you know, the authors tend to keep the dialogue just very short and quick. And this was very interesting to me in thinking about my own book, is she has some places where she has an entire paragraph of a character speaking. And so I found that to be an interesting way to move the book forward and put you a reader inside the character's head more and thinking about what they're saying. So that was fascinating when I looked at the way she structures dialogue. And of course, there aren't always dialogue tags either. So there's not always a sentence and then he said, she said, or, he whispered. Or oftentimes, you know, one, one character is speaking. And because you know the point of view for each chapter You get the rhythm of who's talking and who the other person is. And so you don't always have to have the dialogue tags to, to clue in the reader, which I think also helps with the momentum. And I think that also

Elizabeth: 12:24

probably relies on the skill of her having established kind of the tone or like the background of the character to know that like, Oh, well, the snarkiness, that's coming from Bree, you know, like anything snarky or whatever is gonna be her, you know, because you've already been immersed in her character, so you almost develop an ear for their, like, way of talking.

Stephanie: 12:46

Oh, absolutely. And the other thing that was interesting, too, was I was noticing, because it's between Bree and Jacob's points of view, is that In his chapters, there's often less of him talking because he really struggles with anxiety, and I think the way she writes that character trait into the book is where the showing not telling comes in is that she shows in so many ways that aspect of who he is. And so, if you're someone who is familiar with anxiety like I am, I've definitely struggled with that myself in the past and things have improved for me in terms of my anxiety now, but I definitely have had those feelings. And so his character really resonated with me when he's saying, the panic sets in and he's obsessing over what he's gonna eat because she's invited him to have lunch with her and it's like, Oh my gosh, I don't want to have the smelly food or he's sitting outside a bar and describing how the environment is going to make him feel. And so that was where I felt it was effective as opposed to specifically saying, That he struggles with anxiety is her writing shows it in so many ways.

Elizabeth: 14:08

So do you feel like the, I know the next piece you're going into is the show versus telling, is that largely accomplished through dialogue?

Stephanie: 14:16

It's both through the dialogue there are a lot of different characters that come in throughout the book. A lot of them, family members or friends and so forth. You get to know about the characters, for example Brie learns some things about Jacob through conversations with other. Characters in the book. And likewise, like he learns things about her from talking about others. And so you really get a sense of who the characters are. And I think too, with the showing, not telling, it's really powerful with the first person point of view that she uses where you're inside the character's thoughts and You're allowed to be transported right into where they're feeling. And I think that's really powerful for showing as opposed to telling and being more informative to the reader. The showing is so important for allowing the reader to experience what's happening. And I think that's what Abby does so well, and something that I took away from it was thinking about how can I, in my own book, Use more description and dialogue to show the reader who this person is. In my book, my main character is really into coffee, but she's gotten a Starbucks. You know, I talk about encountering another character who kind of rolls his eyes at the fact that she's drinking a Starbucks. So you get this sense of that opinion about her having that type of coffee. So I think that's one place abby really does an amazing job is giving that description so that you feel like you're right there in the character's shoes experiencing the moment. And I think that's why it's definitely been a challenge for me because like I said before at the start of this, I'm so used to writing information. And so shifting into finding those strong descriptive verbs that give you more of an idea, as opposed to just a normal, you know, the character walked. Well, there are a lot of other words, there are better words than That, they sprinted, they shuffled, other ways that we can talk about how a character is coming into a place and So that really got me thinking as I was reading.

Elizabeth: 16:46

Yeah, it's a little bit more of like showing the effects of a particular fact that you want to convey to the reader. Like you, you gave the example of the anxiety, which is such a good one and it's just showing the effects of the anxiety and the reader, especially if they can relate to that, understands that that means, oh, this person has anxiety or insecurity or something along those lines. And. Yeah, by almost showing just the effect of whatever the emotion or the feeling is versus just stating the feeling outright.

Stephanie: 17:18

Absolutely, and leads right into a really great, quote from the book where Jacob's saying, I felt my heart beginning to pound at the idea of being in there, if you've ever experienced anxiety and you know what happens when your heart starts to race and you're like, Oh, my goodness, I don't know if I can do this. And I'm sure everybody's had that experience at one time and another, especially if you have the fear of standing up in front of a room full of people and talking. But you just, as opposed to being told at any, because you're not told at any point That that's what he's experiencing, but they're all of these descriptions of places and spaces that cause him to take pause about whether or not he wants to be there and then to be thinking like, Oh my goodness, I have to go in there and talk to my brother and my heart's pound. I don't know if this is right. So, yeah, showing the character's experience and from a reading perspective, you're taken right into that. So again the beginning, the opening and closing to chapters, the dialogue and the showing not telling were such huge takeaways from reading that and applying it to my own writing.

Elizabeth: 18:25

That's really cool. I love those insights. And while I don't have a lot of dialogue at all in my memoir, because I pretty much only have anything in quotes if I took it directly from my journal or a letter I still had or something like that. Definitely those other two points, the showing, not telling, and that way that she captured the beginning and the end of the chapters, particularly for me, the end of the chapter to, you know, to entice the reader to keep reading, like, that's something that I've been also trying to be mindful of, and I love those examples that you shared from the ending of those chapters, whether it's like, A slightly hyperbolic, you know, self assessment where, you know, like you gave for the end of the first chapter where Bree's reflecting on post divorce, I don't have much of anything on even, you know, in myself, or if it's just the more classic cliffhanger situational thing, like at the end of Jacob's chapter where it's like I'm not alone. So I think those are great lessons to take into any genre. And that's so cool that you were able to see such prime examples through that book of those. So thanks for sharing those.

Stephanie: 19:42

Yeah. Well, I'm excited to hear from you reading Untamed and applying it to your memoir writing. And so I'm ready to learn from you. All right, let's

Elizabeth: 19:52

dig in. So as Stephanie said, I read Untamed by Glennon Doyle. I had listened to this book on audio book. A couple years ago, it was during my big drive, my move from Minnesota to Colorado. So we had a multi day car trip move because we were moving with, a two year old at the time, plus cats, and so we were stopping periodically as well. So I already knew that this memoir had a lasting impact on me from just a personal development and how I view the world and how I challenge quote unquote authority or cages as Glennon poses in her book and because it was a memoir that's, you know, stuck with me it's one I wanted to dig into for this read like a writer month. So I had never physically read the book and there are definitely things in reading this in book form that stood out to me much more than I remember being impacted through the audio book. I don't know if that's because of the format in which I was enjoying the book, or because I went into this book specifically looking for those types of things, but I have to say, and we can even recap a discussion of this at the end, Taking this approach, even with this book, has changed how I've been reading even other books. Like, I have to force myself sometimes to turn off that writer's side if I'm just trying to enjoy a book for, you know, a reader purpose.

Stephanie: 21:25

Oh, absolutely. And I was just going to jump in and say that your mention of physically reading a book versus listening, I mean, it was the same for me because with the book that I read, I had also listened to it first and then Picked it up to read it physically. So yeah, you, you clue into something so powerful having the book physically in hand for the read like a writer process.

Elizabeth: 21:45

Absolutely. So the three things that were the biggest takeaways for me and what I hope will be helpful for others who are looking to write memoir. And again, these could be applicable to other genres as well. First is something more memoir specific and that is the structure that is writing either in the narrative format that is more chronological in the storytelling from for the memoir or vignettes. And so I'll talk through those two options and styles and what stood out to me with this particular book. I'll also highlight the impact that Glennon was not hesitant at all to repeat the same concept even sequentially in order to make a stronger impact and get the message across to the reader. And then I'll finish up with this special sentence structure that I noticed that she employs in her book in key emotional moments that helps control the pacing. At first, I noticed it and it did stand out and then I just kept seeing it over and over and over again and I must have flagged almost 10 different examples in the book as I was reading through and so then I took some time sort of outside of the reading time to break down. Okay, how is this really working? What is the meaning behind this structure? How can I break this down so that I can apply it to my own writing? So I'll share a little bit of that at the end as well. So starting off the, you know, chronological narrative format versus vignettes. Well, the structure of this book does vary a lot, and I can dig into that a little bit too. The beginning of the book especially is done in short, brief vignettes. And it's really impactful because of the story that Glennon is trying to tell. So this is a more conceptual theme as opposed to a memoir that's written about some sort of physical challenge or travel or something that has a confined time frame because her topic of being untamed and this wilding and the cages and the keys that allow us to You know leave these cages that we find ourselves in Because of what the message she's trying to get across These vignettes of these brief little snippets of time are really impactful Plus, these individual moments or stories are not that pivotal or monumental individually, but because of the way she pieces together these small, almost inconsequential moments, at least that's how they appear on the surface, It makes a bigger impact because of how they play into the broader messaging of the way that society dictates how women's bodies should look, or the contrast she would see between the young girls and the young boys in various settings, or her own experiences where she felt like she needed to look a certain way, or be a certain way, or behave a certain way. And so. I've actually put together a little bit of a guide within our curated coursework in our writers community. So for anyone who's trying to decide whether their story is better suited being told through a more chronological narrative approach. Or vignettes. I've got a self quiz that you can give yourself. And it's basically things that make these two different styles stand out. You know, is there a central event or theme like I referenced travel or physical challenge? Yes or no. Because these styles lend themselves differently to that depending on that answer. You know, if there's a big break in timeline or If the best way to tell the story is by jumping timelines, then vignettes are well suited for allowing your reader to easily jump timelines without getting lost in the overarching message of the story.

Stephanie: 25:51

Now are her vignettes short paragraphs? Does she do longer vignettes? Or does it vary depending upon what she's sharing?

Elizabeth: 25:59

It can vary, but they're not, some are as short as like page, page and a half. Some are a little bit longer, maybe three, four pages. But most of the beginning of the book are just shorter stories. They encompass a moment. Sometimes she spends a little bit more time describing the moment or, or relaying to the reader what sort of impact they should take from the moment based as she starts to speak to the reader a little bit more outside of just relaying, you know, the nature of the experience, but they're really only a couple of pages each. And then ultimately, you have to decide when you're writing a memoir. Is the narrative driven by the significance of little moments or the impact of big ones? Because if it's the added significance of these little moments, vignettes do that so well. Whereas in my own personal experience, when I mapped out the life and the moments that really impacted me, they were really big, significant. Moments that everyone is going to recognize as significant, like leaving my career or getting a divorce. So I felt like my story is better through the more chronological narrative approach, but this one is a beautiful example of how vignettes can serve to tell a story that is a little bit more conceptually based versus, you know identify challenge or period of time now, in reference to the structure, this is another example where published authors who already have a following, who already have editors, you know, ready to go, and book agents can have a little bit more leeway in the structure. So the beginning part is a lot of vignettes, probably the first, like, third of the book. But then we get into the middle third of the book and it gets much more, self help style, Where Glennon is speaking directly to the reader and talking about society at large and giving little snippets of her life as examples to support that concept she's trying to portray to the reader. So if you are looking to write a non fiction self help, the middle of this book is probably a good example of that. I would not recommend it if you're trying to write memoir to model it after the middle of the book, she even has two chapters that suddenly diverge into an advice column where she has, you know, in italics, someone who's written her a question and then the rest of the chapter is her response to that person based off of her own experience. So vignette structure in the middle of the book. And then towards the end, she does get back into a couple more vignettes and I was searching out examples of when she's talked about why she might have structured the book this way. And I know from listening to her podcast, she had an episode where she had her good writing friend Liz Gilbert on. And they were reflecting back about how Glennon had sent her some early pages, early iterations of the book to read. And Liz had highlighted that while the stories were meaningful, they were losing their impact because even the way in which Glennon had structured the stories originally Was still in a cage in and of themselves the cage of the expectations of what this kind of book is going to look like and be structured like so it was actually in that writing community between the two of them that Glennon was motivated to break from that structure and go towards something that was a little bit more like unhinged a little bit. Less typical, and she, I watched an interview that she had on Marie Forleo's podcast or YouTube channel speaking about the structure, and she said that ultimately she settled on this more wild structure because that is the underlying theme of this book, you know, getting out of these cages and returning to a more wild state, and that initially her editors and book agent were not super into it, but she really believed in the structure and advocated for it. But, yes, listener and fellow writers, this is cautionary because this is what you can do once you are more established within your genre, but that is definitely a verge, you know avenue that is not often taken and as a, you know, unpublished Writer, I would not recommend that being your first foray as far as structure, but instead sticking to either the chronological or mostly chronological narrative structure or vignette.

Stephanie: 30:37

I do think it does speak a little bit to holding on to what you believe in about the story that you're telling. So while, Glennon had this ability to break the rules in a big way, certainly what you, bring up is that she stuck to her core belief about the story that she was trying to tell. And so I think, especially, with memoir and I mean, with any book for that matter, but when you are holding on to something that's so personal. that being able to tell the story the way you want to tell it, there is something powerful about holding on to that piece for yourself. Though I do agree with you that early on when it's your first book, it might not be the space to completely break all the rules, but certainly holding on to your voice is important.

Elizabeth: 31:27

Right, there's already a variety of structure that's acceptable within memoir, being the narrative or the vignette, and, and identifying which one is going to be most conducive to the way you want to portray your story, the way your story is structured, and identifying which of those two options is best suited is, is the advice that I would give to those who are looking to write their memoir.

Stephanie: 31:47

Absolutely. My

Elizabeth: 31:48

second point is not a super lengthy point, but what I felt very validated in was in seeing how Glennon does not hesitate to repeat a sentiment, even in like, immediate, sequential order, and she may not Put a different twist on it or a different perspective, but she's not afraid to repeat a point. And I think that's really helpful because as I've worked with other writers and spoken to other writers, I've heard that it takes upwards of three times for a reader to hear something or read something in order to accept it as truth. So whether that's some aspect of your world building or some part about the character. In my book, I'm trying to portray, especially in my earlier chapters in my younger years, my tendency towards people pleasing, even if it's to my own detriment. And what I liked about seeing that in Glennon's book, it felt like permission to go ahead and state it three times right here. You don't have to necessarily find a way to work it in three different times, you know, throughout the length of your book. You can if that's what works for your, your storyline, but also it was permission to me as a writer. Because it wasn't off putting at all, and it didn't seem super repetitive. But she also just didn't hesitate to just restate something in a different way. And that does go a little bit into my third point, which is that special sentence format that I kept noticing in her book. So I'm going to read you a couple of quotes from the book, and then I'm going to break down briefly What my takeaways were from this structure? Instead of sitting, people are milling. Milling with people I do not know is my idea of hell on earth. I do not mill. So again, she's taking this singular concept of milling and saying it essentially three different ways to make an impact. Here's another example. My boiling point was the moment Abby stepped through that doorway. I looked at her and I could no longer contain myself. I lost control and then the last example. The panic in the room settled. Everyone breathed and seemed to instantly relaxed and steady. We moved on and then 1 more for 16 years. I made damn sure that nothing touched me. I was an exposed nerve. everything hurt. So not only does she restate the same things over and the same concept through three separate sentences, you may hear as I'm reading these, what I picked up on, which is that she goes from these, it's in all of these examples, it was three sentences. With always the last sentence being a very short sentence, two to three words, usually not very lengthy at all. But what I also noticed and tried to analyze and break down for myself is, what is the structure of these three sentences? And this is what I observed. The first sentence was a statement about the scene occurring around her, such as instead of sitting, people are milling. The second sentence was typically an indication of the feelings or emotions that were arising for her during that scene. I looked at her and I could no longer contain myself. The third sentence was typically a strong statement of self that is derived from that experience. I do not mill. I lost control. We moved on. There was, in the last example I gave, I did find that in that situation she did reverse the statement of self and the feeling. So she had, I was an exposed nerve. Everything hurt. And the reason that that still has the same impact is because the shortest sentence was still the last sentence. So even though the idea behind the sentences were reversed in that last example, she still ended with the shortest sentence. And the impact that that had not only in repeating the same sentiment in three different ways, sort of the presentation of the scene, the emotional impact and then a state, a strong statement of self. Also, in the structure of the sentence, because you are getting essentially increasingly shorter, it slows down the pacing of the reading that your mind pays more attention to it. Not only are you hearing this concept three different ways, you're also getting shorter in sentence. And it just has such an impact and I could see this being used not only in memoir, but in dialogue in, or, you know, portraying a character's thought process in fiction writing as well.

Stephanie: 36:30

Oh, absolutely. I mentioned that just in the way, you know, in the book I read where the ending of chapters was. Often, almost similar to what you're describing where there are a couple of lengthy sentences and then all of a sudden there's just a short sentence. And just listening to you read those examples, what struck me were the strong statements of self. I do not mill. And I'm thinking to myself. I can relate to that I do not mill it makes me smile to think I'm connecting with her experience right there. And setting up the scene where you're in this space with all these people, just because other people are doing it doesn't mean I have to do it and, and just even the one about panic and losing control and I mean just, you can feel the emotions. And then the last one you read where it's the exposed nerve but then it's like, we moved on. You're like, ah, as the reader, you can relax along with where she is. And so I love that because I do think that what you're talking about could be applied so well to other genres as well.

Elizabeth: 37:40

So for those of you that are in the writing community or interested in joining our writing community, what I've done and put it in, we'll post within there, is the breakdown with these examples, the explanation of the sentence structure, and then even an exercise to look in your own journal or your own writing, identify sort of the key pivotal emotional moment. Because you want to use this technique sparingly. I mean, she, she probably did this about once per chapter, and granted these were vignettes, so they were shorter chapters, but she picked the key pivotal moment of that chapter in which to do this, and so I have an exercise that's in the community that you can walk through your own journal. I provided a practice example from my journal where I took a singular concept and broke it into this format, and you'll be able to see the difference in impact from what you started with with your sentiment or your statement versus where you end up. It is definitely more impactful. So anyone who is writing something of a more emotional nature, I definitely recommend taking a look at this and seeing if this may be a stylistic way that would work for your writing as well.

Stephanie: 38:51

Well, and also with the, the three takeaways I had from my book, I'm going to be turning that into a mini course and reference and resources within our community as well. And it's really about taking what you need from it and leaving the rest behind and finding what works for you and your style. But certainly what we both have taken away from this is the power of using mentor authors as guides in our own journey, because certainly there's so many craft books out there. And those are wonderful resources, but sometimes it's going right to the source, finding the authors that maybe you've put on your vision board and said, I want to be like her, or I want to be like him or whoever it is. And using this approach of reading like a writer to help you with your own practice. And that's what's so exciting about our book club. While this month we picked our own, next month in February, we're going to be reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. And focusing on character development, but certainly there'll be other pieces that we'll take away from it for our own writing, but we're very excited about that, and there's an opportunity to join that book club by going to our website, you can simply search. Inspired Writer Collective, and you'll find your way there to join us.

Elizabeth: 40:22

The links are also in our description if you're listening to this through Apple Podcasts. If you look to the show description, you can find all of our social media links there. So, fellow writers, if you've enjoyed this breakdown of books, if you would like a chance to look at books in a different sort of way like this, like we said, we have our book club where we're selecting books. With that, we also have a workbook and discussion guide that can help you break down not just the books we're reading together, but any book that you pick up that you want to analyze as a writer, someone who inspired you or a story that touched you and you want to figure out what was it about that methodology or writing that really resonated with you. That workbook is a resource that can help you break that down.

41:10

Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. We hope you found inspiration, insights, and connection to yourself as a writer. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe, and leave us a 5 star review. Remember, the power of storytelling lies within each of us, and by supporting one another, we can make a difference. We can amplify our voices and craft narratives that resonate with the world. We're not just about words on a page. We're passionate about the craft, the process, and building a supportive community. Become a part of our community by connecting with us on social media. You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at inspired writer collective on Tik TOK at inspired writer LLC by joining our writing community online at inspired dash writer. Dash collective.mn.co and let's continue this writing journey Together, you can find links in the show notes. Until next time, fellow writers may your pens be mighty and your stories captivating. Happy writing.