Why Is This Good?

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “A Manual for Cleaning Women” by Lucia Berlin . What can we learn from this story? How can we use a repeating structure in a story? How can the emotional shape of a story influence its structure?...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Everything That Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor . What can we learn from one of O’Connor’s best parables? How do details make a story richer? What does it mean for a...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Wood Sorrel House” by Zach Williams . What can we learn from this story? Do we need to interpret what the story means? Is there a metaphor? How can interior psychology be presented by external c...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges . What can we learn from this seminal work? How does the Garden of Forking Paths function in the story? How can a story maintain momentum while...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Found Objects” by Jennifer Egan ( second story in this PDF ). What can we learn from this story? How can plot serve character and character serve plot? How can a character be both a device and a...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Two Words” by Isabel Allende , originally “Dos Palabras” . What can we learn from this story translated from Spanish? How can we use our writing eye in descriptions? How can a story...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “The Piano Teacher’s Pupil” by William Trevor . What can we learn from this short, well-crafted story? How can backstory help build the present moment? How can we establish throughlines? Ho...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Nine Lives” by Ursula K. Le Guin . What can we learn from another great story from a master of speculative fiction? How can we portray unusual experiences that are nonetheless fundamentally huma...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury . What can we learn from this story of dangerous technology? How can a mystery drive a story? How can a future-looking story remain timeless? What are some ways a stor...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “How to Be an Other Woman” by Lorrie Moore. (Read First Section and Second Section .) What can we learn from this mock self-help instructional story? How are emotional moments developed? How do t...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “The Daemon Lover” by Shirley Jackson . What can we learn from this psychological thriller? How can anxiety drive a story? How can the prose and details create and develop a psychology or mood fo...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald . What can we learn from this story? How can fiction subtly reveal character motives? How can we use a slippery point of view to direct the reader&#8217...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “The Martyr” by Mary Gordon . What can we learn from this story of a character trying to remember and understand their brother? How does foreshadowing structure the unfolding of the story and our...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “A Visit of Charity” by Eudora Welty . What can we learn from this story about lonely people? How can distinct characters help develop a theme from several directions? How do the characters help...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick . What can we learn from this classic work of science fiction? How can a story keep redefining itself? How can a consistent character keep...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut” by J. D. Salinger . What can we learn from this classic Salinger story? Can a third person point of view be purely external? How does subtext deepen a story? How ca...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Unaccompanied Sonata” by Orson Scott Card . What can we learn from this borderline science fiction story? What can happen when a story establishes a system in which the protagonist exists? Shoul...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “The Werewolf” by Angela Carter . What can we learn from this quick, little take on a folktale? How can setting help characterize a story? How can the prose reflect the mood of a setting or chara...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Zombie” by Joyce Carol Oates . What can we learn from this portrait of a real-life serial killer? How do we feel about a portrait of a monster? Why do we write fiction in the first place? What c...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “The Wind” by Lauren Groff . What can we learn from this tense, action-packed story? How can we make a story so gripping? How can a removed point of view help reveal more depth in a story? How ca...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “These Golden Cities” by K. David Wade . What can we learn from this story about taking an acid trip? How does the story guide us through the character’s experience? How do the character&#8...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “Non-Zero Probabilities” by N. K. Jemisin . What can we learn from this bit of speculative fiction? How can world-building be personal to a character? Can we set up the reader to infer the nature...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “A Telephone Call” by Dorothy Parker . What can we learn from this intense interior monologue story? How does this nearly 100-year-old story still reflect modern reality? How does the representat...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss Curtis Sittenfeld vs ChatGPT . What can we learn from this experiment in comparing a literary author with an AI-generated story? How would we critique the ChatGPT story? What makes the Sittenfeld story human...

If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining our Patreon. Your support helps us keep the show running. Find out more at http://www.patreon.com/whyisthisgoodpodcast In this episode, we discuss “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado . What can we learn from this exploration of a familiar horror scenario? How can we expand on a common symbol in a story? How can we structure a story...