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 “Separating” by John Updike . What can we learn from this vivid and careful short story? Can we say anything about the voice of this story? How does a story create its own voice? How can we handl...

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 “It’s Such a Beautiful Day” by Isaac Asimov . What can we learn from this classic science fiction story? How can a single imagined technology inform a fictional world? How can we create app...

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 Frog King” by Garth Greenwell . What can we learn from this quiet portrait of a human relationship? Is there conflict in this story? Does a story need conflict? What other properties of a st...

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 Destructors” by Graham Greene . What can we learn from this quick but complex story? How can group dynamics be quickly introduced in a story? How can the central action of a story produce an...

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 “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson . What can we learn from this deceptively simple story? What does it mean that a story’s ending should be surprising yet inevitable? How do you build up...

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 “Civil Peace” by Chinua Achebe . What can we learn from this own-voice story? How can a story use a refrain or leitmotif? How can a theme or exploration of a specific kind of moment create 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 “Woman at Exhibition” by E. Lily Yu . What can we learn from this brief story? How can real-life, historical people be incorporated into speculative fiction? How can a narrative theme connect dif...

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 “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” by Denis Johnson . What can we learn from this great little story? What is a writer’s “eye”? How does sentence structure help develop a style? What...

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 “When Stars Collide” by Ottessa Moshfegh . What can we learn from this work of Flash Fiction? How do specific actions and details help define a character? How can a character sketch undermine a 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 Dead” by James Joyce . What can we learn from the story T. S. Eliot called “one of the greatest short stories ever written”? What can we learn from Joyce’s masterful prose...

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 Bear Came Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro . What can we learn from this story with an unexpected but inevitable ending? How does the structure function? How can we build to a culminating m...

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 Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges . What can we learn from this work of Philosophical Fiction? How can a speculative story be built upon a philosophical question? How does a story signa...

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 “Drive My Car” by Haruki Murakami . What can we learn from this quietly contemplative story? What kind of structure can we find in a relatively structureless piece? How does the idea of grief inf...

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 “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut . What can we learn from this classic of speculative fiction? How does its cartoonishness impact its humanity? How important is it for fiction to be grounded...

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 Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu . What can we learn from this fanciful story? How does language help create the mood of the unfolding of the story? How can summaries...

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 Man Who Lost the Sea” by Theodore Sturgeon . What can we learn from this dreamlike science fiction story? How versatile and variable is point of view? How many different kinds of second pers...

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 “And of Clay Are We Created” by Isabel Allende . What can we learn from this story based on real events? How does point of view help define the emotional distance of a story? How can we turn real...

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 “Spring in Fialta” by Vladimir Nabokov . What can we learn from Nabokov and his ability to capture moments? How can detailed moments build up a story? How can a compelling character sketch create...

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 Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu . What can we learn from this affecting story with a touch of magic to it? How can we use a bit of magic or fantasy to enliven a story? How can magic help create...

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 “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” by Tadeusz Borowski . What can we learn from this devastating account of prisoners at Auschwitz? How can a stark, simple depiction create such a vivid...

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 “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood . What can we learn from this playful bit of metafiction? How can we be playful and experimental when writing a story? How can a metafiction or playful form sti...

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 Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe . What can we learn from this classic horror story? How much is needed to create the main effect of the story? What can be done with a good story prem...

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 Eat Chicken Wings” by Kristen Arnett . What can we learn from this fun little piece? Are chicken wings a metaphor? Can a metaphor change through a story? How can food help develop an idea...

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 Frog Prince” by Robert Coover . What can we learn from this retelling of a classic fairy-tale trope? Should we take a story like this literally? What does it mean to have a writer’s ey...

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 “Milkwishes” by Kristen Roupenian . What can we learn from this story that happens so much in the character’s thoughts? How can memories be the main focus of a story? How can we develop sub...