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WriterCon Presents: Stories That Change Us · WriterCon

• 0:05
  Welcome to writer Khon, a gathering place for writers to share their knowledge about
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  writing and the writing world. Your hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist
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  and author of The Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award
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  winning author of the want Land Files book series. Hey Writers, This week,
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  Laura and Jesse and I are going to take a break, but to
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  fill the interim period, we're going to share with you an episode from our
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  favorite new podcast put on by a couple of our dear friends, Laurel Thomas
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  and Kat Lewis, both of whom you may have seen it Writer Well for
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  that better, they'll both be on the Writer con Cruise, so we know
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  them very well. And this podcast is terrific. It's called Stories That Changes
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  and every time they discuss great stories, great books, books and the impact
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  impact they have. And the episode we're going to share with you, which
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  I chose, is on The Princess Bride because The Princess Bride by William Goldman,
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  I'm talking about the book is one of the best books I've ever read
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  my entire life. I know some of you have seen the movie if you
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  haven't read the book first, but some people have seen the movie. Yeah,
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  well you know at all you're going to hear them talk about comparing the
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  two, and all I can say is you're probably gonna like best whichever one
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  you encountered first in life. But the book is very different from the movie
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  though, both very amusing. And so here's this sample episode from this wonderful
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  new podcast, Stories That Change Us, and we'll be back with more writer
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  news and interviews next time. You are listening to The Stories That Change Us
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  Podcast, a lively podcast that analyzes timeless and trendy fiction as we seek to
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  understand what it is about these stories that light our souls on fire. Join
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  Laurel, Melissa, Micah and Kat, authors representing the generations as we uncover
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  the elements, arcs, and heart that make these novels both transcendent and necessary.
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  Welcome to the Stories That Change Us Podcast. I'm Micah Lydorf and I
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  am here with my writer friends Laurel Thomas, Kat Lewis, Melissa Grace.
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  And on this fifth episode, we are talking about everybody's favorite, The Princess
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  Bride. Woo whoo. Now the Princess Bride is a little bit different because
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  the movie adaptation was vastly more popular than the book, but I mean a
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  lot of us may not even known. Oh wait, that was a real
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  book, right exactly? Yeah. Yeah, So it's a little bit of
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  an interesting story because it's kind of not only as that, oh wait,
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  there's a real book, but then the book is a pretend adaptation of a
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  longer book that's actually fictional, so it gets a little bit convoluted. But
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  I've loved the book. I mean, I've loved the movie forever and I've
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  never read the book, so this was my first time to read it.
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  How about you guys, same same, Yes, okay, so none of
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  us had actually read the book before. Okay, well, what were your
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  first impressions. I mean I walked into this with a distinct feeling of dread
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  because I remember somebody distinctly telling me that The Princess Bride is boring. And
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  once I once I kind of acclimated myself, I actually thought that I was
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  reading the wrong book for the first like fifteen pages, because there's so much
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  stories set up of you know, like the author and he was never impressive
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  in school and then he writes this book and this was the book that his
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  dad was reading. It I loved it was like, did I freaking buy
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  the Run? This is a twenty five dollars dollar in current coffee. Well,
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  you can't believe everything everybody tells you, especially when they say something's boring.
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  Reminds me of those one star reviews of like The Grand Canyon or you
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  know, it's like really like they thought the Princess Bride was boring? What
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  did they want? Seriously? Seriously? How about you, Laarl? What
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  were your first impressions. Well, from a novelist point of view, I
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  thought this is tropey trophy, my goodness, yay, because tropes are good
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  and he's like unashamed with his tropes. Okay, Laurel, you're using some
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  literary jargon there. For our non writer listeners, can you tell us what
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  is a trope? So, a trope is like a universal it's a it's
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  a universal emotional appeal. So, you know, the dashing young man who
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  lays down his life for a damsel in distress, that's a trope, like
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  and fasick. You know the giant, Well, we love him, but
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  why do we love him? Because he's a trope. He is a big
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  guy who doesn't think that he has a brain and he ends up saving the
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  day. And you know they're they're fun, but as many as you can
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  get into your novel, it brings a universal emotional appeal. Awesome, Well,
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  thank you for explaining that. That's part of what we do here at
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  Stories That Change Us is we kind of dissect these stories that we love.
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  We have this visceral attraction right to Princess Bride. I mean, I love
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  that there's something for everyone, right, Like, I think it's great.
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  My girlfriends think it's great. But I can show it to my like my
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  little eight seven year old boys, and they love it. And now they're
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  seveneen and eighteen and they still love it. So it's great to like kind
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  of dissected by Now, Okay, what exactly is it about these stories that
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  is appealing to us? So you, Melissa, have not yet shared your
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  first impressions. We got cats and Laurels, but how about you, Melissa.
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  I had just a little minute where I was like, Okay, our
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  floral Floring Guild or earth Reeal, Oh my gosh, you're probably not,
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  but it's brave of you to admit it. It was like, you know,
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  there are little countries in Europe that familiar with so it was just it
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  was just a flash. It was just no and there. In your defense,
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  Melissa, the author really does kind of prep you, like, you
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  know, talking about like this is a fictional retelling of an actual fiction story
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  that some you know, Slavic author wrote. I really was like, I
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  need to go back and look at my European mount the nineteen fifties. You
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  don't read fantasy much. No, I don't actually because it has