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Lessons - The Anatomy of Impactful Storytelling | Stephen Riggio - Narrative Strategist & Author · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, discover what makes the story unforgettable through a layered tale of
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  history, love, justice, and rebellion. Learn why historical fiction resonates across time,
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  learn how betrayal and vengeance reflect modern distrust in institutions, and learn why translating a novel
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  requires as much creativity and discipline as writing one.
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  You've seen so many books over here. You're probably more than many, many people who have ever been
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  alive have seen just because of the work that you've done. What makes an incredible book or an
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  incredible story? Like what made this one stand out to you in particular? I've always been attracted to
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  big books, big novels, 500 pages, 600 pages, 700 pages, something that you could get lost in.
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  And as my wife Laura says, this book has something for everyone. It's a historical novel.
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  It's an adventure novel. There's scenes of swashbuckling sword fights in the book.
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  There's a love story. And at the heart of it, there's a story of justice.
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  The book is about a secret sect called the Beatty Powell, which was the name of the Italian novel.
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  I don't think that could work in English.
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  That comes to the defense of the commoners who are preyed upon by the aristocracy,
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  by the landowners, by the barons, and often by the church.
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  Because at that time, Sicily was still a feudal society, and the inquisition was in full force.
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  And people were accused of heresy. They were jailed and tortured and executed.
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  So it's about justice in the sense of, you know, where do people turn to
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  when they have been unjustly accused of something, when they've been persecuted,
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  when they have nowhere to go. And this secret sect, which is somewhat based in history and
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  somewhat based in myth, steps in. And that's the main plot of the book. And they come to the
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  defense of one of the main characters. And if you think about that, that sort of scene you
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  just described, is that, because I've heard terms of heroes' journey and all these other story
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  arcs, is this something that is almost like what's the literary mechanism that makes this
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  compelling? Because I think this is a theme that you see in a lot of very popular books.
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  Well, it's a story of Revenge in Betrayal. Underneath all of this, there are friendships and rivalries.
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  It's a multi-layered story. Why I think it's attractive? Because the characters are in the book,
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  most of them are fictional, but some are not. So it's rooted in real history.
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  Oh, you can pull pieces from my history. There's this accession plot at the heart of the story,
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  which for people who have seen HBO's succession, maybe, that may grab them.
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  And there's a love story. There's a love story. Yeah, the law's going to say there's all these
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  elements. Yeah, there's a love story because there's, I don't want to reveal too much, but there's
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  women in the book that are competing for the love of the same man. And there's another rival in
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  there. So that's, that's why I think it's appeal. Now, the sect that's at the heart of the book
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  have been considered to be four runners of the Sicilian mafia. Now, American readers and Americans
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  have been fascinated with the mafia for so long, and not just because of the Godfather movies and
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  book, but there's some element of that. It is a fact that some 20th century Mafiosi people that
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  were in the Sicilian mafia claim that they are descendants from this secret society. I think
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  there's more myth to that than truth. In reality, I would look at this secret sect in this book
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  as more of a Robin Hood type gang than as Martin. And whether you root for them or not,
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  I can't weigh in on that. They certainly come across and you know, this book in Sicily is very,
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  very well known. Even though it's a hundred years old, never before been published in America and
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  English is very, very well known in Sicily. I just returned there in fact from there. And
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  and this sect, they were considered as heroes because they came to the defense of the week.
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  You know, you look today in people's mistrust of institutions, whether it be the courts or the
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  media or the government, you know, has never been at a low all time. It's been at an old time low.
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  And you know, here you have the appeal, the appeal of the outlaw who's going to come and rescue you
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  from being unjustly persecuted. And that's that's where the attraction that's the the heart
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  beat of the story will justice be done here. And you have to read the book to find out.
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  When you think about, I mean, you've gone on this journey now, obviously three years
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  is a significant amount of time. Behind sites 2020, when you think about the options of
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  creating a book, whether or not it was translating or writing from scratch, can you just give
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  some advice for even authors in the audience? The benefits and the negatives to one or the other
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  because you've gone on this journey now, but you've also been exposed to so many writers. I mean,
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  you have insights on writing something that has never been done before as well. So talk to me about
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  both ways to take a book to market the best way to put it. Well, my wife and my daughters
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  were always encouraging me to write, encouraging me to write a book on translating a book is quite
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  different. You're not working with a blank page. You know, I think I have
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  even though I've been in the book selling business so long, doing this has given me such appreciation
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  for what a writer does with a blank page with a blank page.
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  I was working from something that was already written and make no doubt these are my words,
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  but I did have to work from, let's call it a brief, and I had to take each word, each sentence,
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  each paragraph and shape them into something that I thought would be appealing and enjoyable
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  for the English reader. But I do have a newfound, let's say, appreciation for the work that writers do.
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  I have lots of friends that are writers and just think about some writers, many writers that are
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  publishing books every year. They come out with one a year. James Patterson comes out with more
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  than one a year. So I have tremendous admiration and respect for that kind of
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  its creativity and its discipline. You know, you have to think about the discipline that it comes
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  sitting down with a blank page and creating something that other people would be fascinated by
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  and that will become fans of yours year after year after year, read every book that you publish.
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  I think John Grisham, who I'm a very big fan of, he just came out with actually a nonfiction book,
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  but he tends to weave stories anew every time he comes out with a new book.
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  And their each has similar to but very different from each other because he's kind of perfected
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  his approach to that kind of novel. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable,
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  don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive
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  deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See
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  you in the next one.