Latest / The Daily Writer / Timeless Principles on Storytelling from Aristotle | Doug Vigliotti

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Timeless Principles on Storytelling from Aristotle | Doug Vigliotti · The Daily Writer

0:08
SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Writer Podcast.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm an author and ghostwriter, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and income as a writer.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me for this episode of our Summer Expert series.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Hey, if you're like me, you probably have a shelf full of books on the craft of writing and storytelling.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: And yes, I admit it, I'm a junkie for books that dissect and analyze how to tell better stories.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: And whether you write blog posts, books, material for clients, and of course novels, you can always learn to become a better storyteller, right?
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, today we're going all the way back to one of the most important sources for learning how to tell stories better, and that, of course, is the original teacher of story, Aristotle himself.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: And my guest is Doug Vigliati, author of Aristotle for Novelists, 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: He's the author of three additional books, including Tom Collins A Slightly Crooked Novel, which is available to listen to on Slightly Crooked Good Stories Told Well, a podcast that also features his raw and unorthodox poem collection, many heartbreaks or little poems about life.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Doug is also the host of Books for Men, a weekly podcast to inspire more men to read.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: And he lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, his book, Aristotle for Novelist, is of course based on Aristotle's classic work, Poetics, which lays out the timeless rules of drama.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: The book has been around for over 2,000 years, so needless to say, it's pretty well known at this point.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: And Doug has done every writer a huge favor by distilling these principles down into an easy to understand format for every storyteller, no matter what kind of writing that you do.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: So in this conversation today with Doug, we're going to talk about how these principles apply to nonfiction writers.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: We talk about the six components of story, we chat about the three big questions a writer must answer in order to write their story, and so much more.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: This was a really, really fun conversation filled with creative tips for every kind of writer.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: So even if you don't consider yourself a novelist or a fiction writer, there are tons and tons of good tips that we talk about in this conversation.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: And of course, I highly encourage you to grab his book, Aristotle for Novelist.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: I've got a link in the show notes.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: You can, or you can just hop on Amazon and Google it.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, you wouldn't Google something on Amazon, I guess, but you can hop on Amazon and put it in the search bar and the book will come right up.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: It's a really, really good book, and most important of all, well, maybe not most important of all, but one of the most important things that I look for in a book is that it's a fun read and it's a simple and very practical read.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: So the book is not that long.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: It's uh I don't remember how many pages it is total, 120, 140, something like that.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: It's a quick read and very, very fun and super practical.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: So make sure and grab that book.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: It's genuinely and legit a really, really great book.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, the cool thing is that Doug has generously agreed to give away a copy of Aristotle for Novelists.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: And you can enter the drawing by going to Douglasvigliati.com slash Kent.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: That's Douglasvigliati.com slash Kent.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And again, there's a link in the show notes.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: And with that, here is my conversation with the amazing and gifted Doug Vigliotti.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Douglas, I'm so thrilled to talk about your book, Aristotle for Novelist.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh, thanks for being a guest.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: And what listeners don't know is that we've already been chatting for like half an hour before I hit record.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: So so welcome slash not welcome, uh, because I've already already welcomed you a long time ago.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: We and we've been chatting.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: So welcome to the show.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Good to have you.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, I'm super excited to be here.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: And uh we have been chatting for 30 minutes, but uh all good things.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, it's just a continuation of that.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: So absolutely.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: I I have already enjoyed our conversation and um am looking forward to the next time I'm gonna schedule this because I can already see you're gonna be a recurring guest on this show.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh if that's if you want to do that, because I've I'm already really enjoying the themes of our conversation.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: So let me dive into something here up front that so I don't normally do this, but I mentioned as we were talking a few minutes ago that I you had kind of asked what I thought of your book.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: And because I am a ghostwriter by train and I spend all day, every day thinking about books and writing books, um, I wanted to share with you a few things that I love about your book.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: If that's okay.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: Is that gonna feel weird for me to I don't I don't I don't think I don't think any author would squabble with that.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: So I will uh I will I will I will take it on the chip.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll we'll dive into it, you know.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: I've got some questions and all this stuff.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: So I know that most people are experiencing this uh as an audio, uh an audio thing, so they're not gonna see your book, but I'll have a link to it in the show notes and they can see the book cover.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: So I'll I will share with you three or four or five things that really jumped have jumped out at me as I've read through your book.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: So number one is I really like the title.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a great title.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: It's catchy.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has, as far as I know, written a book that is applying the principles of Aristotle's poetics to novelists.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they have, but I just don't know about it.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think you have it's a really unique hook.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh the subtitle is great 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: You have a number in the subtitle, so it's a definite number that makes me curious about what those are.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: I love the cover design, it's fun.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a shorter book, a little over 100 pages, which immediately makes me want to go, oh, thank you for not writing a 300-page tome on this.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: The chapters are short, you have a lot of subheads in each chapter.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: I love the writing style, it's very conversational.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: You have some graphics.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: So from my perspective as a reader, you did a a lot of things right with this book, and I think you did a fantastic job on it.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: So thank you for producing a really fantastic book.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: I I appreciate the um the compliments and the um the nuanced uh examination of the book because I tend to be very analytical of all of the things that you mentioned.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: And so when they are uh recognized in some fashion, um it does uh it's a nice thing to hear, right?
6:34
SPEAKER_01: I I'm a big believer in readability, and readability is uh it's hard to quantify.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: I think you did a good job with some of the things that you um you said there, but sometimes books just feel good in your hand.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: That that is a that is a thing that I think we miss that in our age of audiobooks and ebooks with a print book.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: It when you pick it up, it has to feel good carrying it around in your hand.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And I'm kind of old school that way.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad that you have really paid attention to that.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, I I think that readers like paperbacks, yes, consumers like Kindle.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so ebooks are built for consumption, they they make everything the same, the font is the same, the everything is the same, and it's built for you to devour it, just like if you are devouring a social media or a TikTok or a YouTube video, it's built for consumption, it's not built for comprehension necessarily, although they have a lot of cool features.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: But if you I notice that it's super easy for me to read an ebook, like it's so easy, it's like effortless.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I like that effortlessness.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: I like to have a little fight with the book, I like to feel it, bend the page, mark it with a bookmark, you know, have that feel, that tactile, and and also you lose something with the formatting on the page.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if everything becomes the same, you lose those little nuances that like the books back in the day, they used to actually say what the typeface was, and they used to because it's a big part of how a reader experiences that book.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: But like everything else, and look, I have nothing against uh ebooks.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: I use that I definitely use Kindle and them uh when I travel, but I tend to read paperbacks when I'm home, and so much so that I I will not buy a hardback.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: I I don't buy them.
8:44
SPEAKER_01: I will wait for the book to come out in paperback a year later.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: If they I don't like hardbacks either.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: I think they're annoying for the most part.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure people would be offended by that, but they're just they're heavier, they're thicker, they're more unwieldy.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: I also think it's meant for the publisher.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: It's meant for the publisher because that's how they can charge more money.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: It's not there's no way with the dust jacket and all that stuff.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's no way that that's a better reading experience.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: It might look nice on your bookshelf, but there's no way that's a better reading experience than a paperback.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: I refuse to believe it.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: That's why I always respect uh self-published authors who, if they want to do a hardback, they put out a hardback and a paperback at the same time.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: So you have the options.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's very easy to do if you're publishing on Ingram Spark or Amazon or whatever.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: I think mostly hardbacks don't really make sense most of the time, but I also get from the standpoint of sometimes, you know, as an author, you just want a hardback version of a book and you want to have that option for people, and that's okay too.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: It's it I I do have hardbacks usually of books that I really love.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh let's dive into some stuff with your book.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Um I could indulge the whole paperback uh hardback stuff all day because I'm and font choices and design.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: I love all that stuff.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: But we are here to talk about your book, which I love.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Um let's start out with this question.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: So the book is Aristotle for Novelist, and I do have some specific questions about you know book content and how it applies to different kinds of things.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: But why did you write this book uh to begin with?
10:19
SPEAKER_00: What what what prompted you to write a book about Aristotle, which you don't, which is a person who obviously is very historically significant, but you don't hear Aristotle talked about a lot these days.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: So what prompted you to talk about storytelling through the lens of Aristotle?
10:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so this is a great question.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: So I was really just following what was already there.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: I and what I mean by that is when you start to investigate story and how to tell stories and how to write stories, what you quickly realize is that all of these storytelling gurus, people like Robert McKee, or or even storytelling masters, as I call them, practitioners, people like Aaron Sorkin, people like David Mammoth, all of what they're talking about funnels back to Aristotle.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, if everything that they're talking about funnels back to poetics and Aristotle, why don't I just double down on poetics?
11:28
SPEAKER_01: The original, right?
11:30
SPEAKER_01: The original, and so when I was trying to tell stories, you know, and wanted to tell right stories, I read poetics and I read multiple translations, and uh, since I've read it multiple times, and it years later now, after that, uh many years later, I had the time this idea was bugging me.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: Aristotle for novelists.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: Like, why doesn't this these idea these these ideas that dramatic writers have utilized for over 2,000 years to write stories for the screen and the stage and you know the story the movies and that we watch on Netflix right now utilize these Aristotelian principles?
12:14
SPEAKER_01: Why is it that this isn't packaged up for novelists?
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Not that in the fiction world they don't reference Aristotle, but a lot of times when they do do, or I've heard people, I'm wasn't quite convinced that they they were totally understood what they were referencing, because again, there wasn't anything that was really out there that was interpreting these ideas for the novelist specifically.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: And so this idea just kept bugging me.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: And one day I said, you know what?
12:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna write the book because I want it to exist.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: And it's not, I didn't read this material to write this book, I read this material to learn how to write stories and write stories, and then wrote the book.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a big difference there.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: This reminds me a lot of something that C.S.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Lewis once wrote.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I forget what book he wrote this in, but he talked about how a lot of his when he was teaching, a lot of his students would say, Oh, this, this, uh, you know, the masters of literature are so hard to understand.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: But he would talk about going back and reading the originals and how they're the reason that they are classic is because they're actually easy to understand and people get messed up because they read all the interpretations and the applications of the great masters, you know, in whatever field.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: But if you go back and study the originals, they're they're very simple and easy to understand.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: So I love the fact that you've gone back to the original source of our understanding of dramatics and storytelling.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: I just think it's really, really cool.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: I really, really do.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: So I I applaud you for taking this approach rather than writing I guess what I would this is gonna sound kind of negative.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: I guess what I would call like another sort of generic book on storytelling or something like that.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: I probably would have never wrote it.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: Right, like I would have never wrote it if I was if that was the angle.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: The only reason why I wanted this book to come out into the world is because I thought and I still think, and I know this is sort of an egotistical thing to say, but I truly believe that it can help a lot of writers.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean it in a way where it's like chest pounding.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: It's no, this is really valuable information that I think can be very simple if you give it a chance, like to to if you if you if you if you allow yourself to absorb it, because it's one of those things that's reaffirming.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: So, what I mean by that is you'll read the book or you'll read poetics and then you'll see it uh in stories, uh either on the page and on the screen, and that's reaffirming because you're like, wait a minute, that does exist in uh a mystery.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Wait, that does exist in this science fiction movie, wait, that does exist in this piece of literary fiction, it exists everywhere because what Aristotle is really insistent on is that stories are an imitation of life, and so the reason why we see it everywhere is because this is actually applicable to life stories, yes, just as much as it's applicable to stories on the page.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: That's right, and that's one of the reasons why he says we're drawn to storytelling in general, imitation, right?
15:38
SPEAKER_01: Imitation of life, mimesis is what he calls it, mimesis, and we learn to live by imitating as kids.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: And the other is rhythm, but we can get into that at another, you know, if you want to.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: But I think that this is really essential to the comprehension of story as a theme or as a concept, it's applicable everywhere.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: And one of the questions that people ask me is how does this inform your life?
16:07
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's everything.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: What I'm gonna what we're gonna talk about is everything.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: It's my life just as it's this, just as it's your life, and it's the stories on the page.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: And right I can explain what I mean by that, but that's how intertwined story is with our lives and all of the stories that you read.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: So, how does this before I get into some some more, I guess, nuanced or detailed topics or questions uh about the book itself, what is the value of this book?
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean just your book, but what's the value of studying storytelling for people who aren't just writing novels, but let's say ghostwriters who are writing business books or narrative nonfiction, people who are doing copywriting, people who are doing editing?
16:55
SPEAKER_00: So I have a lot of people listening to the show who they're they either are writing fiction or they want to write fiction.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Almost everybody wants to write fiction or they are writing it.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: So that seems to be a commonality.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of people still make their living by doing client work.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's sort of my bread and butter as well as a ghostwriter.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: So, what is the value of studying these principles for people who are not just working on novels or fiction?
17:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a great question.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: So there is something, a core element to every story, and that this core, these, this, what I'm these three questions and these three conditions are going to exist in a fiction novel, they're going to exist in a non-fiction novel, they're gonna exist in someone's life, they're going to exist everywhere, and that is you have a every story involves a protagonist.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, taking it out of the fiction realm.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: The protagonist in this sense is Doug Vigliati.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay, whoa, I'm putting myself in the shoes of the protagonist.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: Who wants something?
17:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Doug wants to publish a book, that's his goal.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay, all of a sudden we've got a we've got the making of a story.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: Doug wants to publish a book, and here is the third element, and they have obstacles, internal and external, external being all of the antagonistic forces that stop me from preventing from prevent me from writing and publishing that book.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: It could be it could be a kid's, it could be the weather, it could be all kinds of external antagonistic forces.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: And then you have the internal antagonistic forces, which are the more interesting ones and the ones that really make the story juicy.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Can Doug overcome his selfishness?
18:46
SPEAKER_01: Could Doug overcome his every story we watch, we write, we about our lives, it evolves a protagonist who wants something and the and has obstacles standing in their way of getting it.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: This is the fundamental aspect of story now.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: If Doug overcomes his obstacles, well, then we have a comedy.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: We end up better off, right?
19:15
SPEAKER_01: We we we we don't succumb to those obstacles, we overcome them and we release the book.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: It's an Aristotelian comedy.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: If we succumb to those obstacles, now we have a tragedy.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: So do we want the tragedy?
19:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't think we want the tragedy.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: We don't want a bigger truth to get unveiled about life.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: We want to beat our opposition, we want to beat our obstacles.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: So I'm kind of going into comedy and tragedy, but they both play off of that core idea of protagonists who want something, and something stands in their way of getting it.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: That is in form of internal and external opposition.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: So whether you're writing a memoir, whether you're writing narrative nonfiction, whether you're trying to achieve any kind of goal in your life, get a client, um, get a spouse.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: This story framework will fit that goal.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: And because that is the and this is what Aristotle is talking about when he says stories imitate life.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: This is what he's talking.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: He's he's not saying that directly, but that's what he means.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: This is this is inherent to the way we live.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: So I feel like everybody listening to this conversation needs to rewind back about four minutes and listen to what you just explained about 10 times because that was absolute gold.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: It really is, and you can see every interaction that you have with somebody has elements of that.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, literally, my son doesn't listen to my podcast, so I could I could I could share this.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: So he's he's a little he's a little sick right now and got a sinus infection, so but he stays up way too late at night.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: I have a point with this story.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: And so so he left for work today, he's 20, and I said, you know, if you if you wouldn't stay up half the night, you would probably get better faster because you're actively working against your body trying to heal itself.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: He's got medicine medication and all that prescription, but he's fighting me and giving me all the reasons, you know, why he can't do that, and I'm just a night owl and blah blah blah.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: So it's funny, like every interaction that we have, even with our own family members, you have kind of this antagonist, protagonist thing going on, and you're fighting and everything.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: So it's almost like what you've shared that is a lens through which you can view every human interaction in a way.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: It's fascinating.
21:46
SPEAKER_01: I think that this is what makes Aristotle Aristotle.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so people throw the name around.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: It's why he's Aristotle.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: This is why he's Aristotle for making recognitions like this.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, we're talking about story, but you can go into we won't probably end this podcast, but you can go into a plethora of topics where he's done almost the same thing.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: And he did it 2300 years ago.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: This wasn't like someone just you know, nothing under the uh sun is new, or what what is that state?
22:20
SPEAKER_01: What is that?
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, nothing new under the sun.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: Nothing new under the sun.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, he made this recognition, and in many ways, we find ways to reiterate these type of things and repackage them in you know new ways or ways that are uh um, you know, I don't know.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's it's interesting because of how resonant it actually is.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: So we're recording this, and we we're recording this on November the 12th.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: This will come out in uh next few weeks.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: And so we had an you know election last week, which dominate has dominated the news for the last year, probably.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting because no matter what side somebody is on, maybe politically, their side always frames what they're doing in this exact way.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: You have an a protagonist who is trying to achieve good, you have an antagonist who's the bad guy, you have these obstacles in the way of this person achieving their political agenda, whatever that is.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting how so much of even politics is framed in this exact storytelling way.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: It's really fascinating.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I obviously I couldn't agree more.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: It's something that has literally framed the way that I look at the world.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's the reason it's it's I I told you before we started this podcast that I never planned on writing another nonfiction book.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: And that is the truth.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: But the reason why I had to write this book is because of how powerful I think that these ideas are.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, even we'll we'll go even a step further when we start talking about character.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: So, what Aristotle has to say about character and true characters and what it means to be a true character.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, what it what does it mean to be true?
24:13
SPEAKER_01: You know, like so if you if you're the protagonist, what does it mean to be true?
24:17
SPEAKER_01: What is true, you know, and true is I mean, for the writer, it's how are we are we reflecting appropriately the trueness of that character on the page, or are we shying away from it?
24:39
SPEAKER_01: Think about that in term metaphorically in one's own life.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: We're writing our own story.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: How true are we reflecting ourselves out into the world?
24:51
SPEAKER_01: How you know, are we being true, or are we not following one of the four elements, you know, four qualities of a character Aristotle talks about is appropriateness?
25:02
SPEAKER_01: Are we violating that?
25:04
SPEAKER_01: Are we violating appropriateness or like goodness?
25:08
SPEAKER_01: Goodness is for a character.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: A character is good if their actions are good, not what they say, not what they think, but are they good if they're only good if their actions are good?
25:24
SPEAKER_01: So metaphorically for life, are your actions good?
25:29
SPEAKER_01: Or are you just saying things or thinking things that are good, right?
25:36
SPEAKER_01: Or relatability, you know, these are all qualities, consistency, these are all qualities that Aristotle talks about about characters, but they're just as applicable for us in life as we try to achieve our life goals.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: And good can be contextual, you know, depending on what is good in one situation is not good in the other.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, why is it that when we watch something like The Sopranos or The Godfather, why do we root for people who are actually doing illegal and quote unquote evil things?
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Because in in the context of that story or that world, they may be doing something quote unquote illegal, but we recognize that okay, in that world, morality is very uh it's very subjective, and so they may be doing, you know, killing this other guy might actually be the good thing to do in that particular subjective world.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that could be summed up as everything is relative, yeah.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's it's storytellers have been using this technique forever.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: Who cares that the the good guy is killing people?
26:45
SPEAKER_01: Have you met the bad guy?
26:47
SPEAKER_01: The bad guy not only kills people, yeah, he rapes them, he tortures them, he, you know, like whoa, the good guy who kills people, he's not so bad after all.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: Do you see this guy over here?
26:59
SPEAKER_01: He's he's him times 10.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: It's relativity, you're right.
27:04
SPEAKER_01: And Robert McKee, I mentioned his name before, he has an idea that says the audience will always seek the center of good.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that the protagonist has to be a good guy.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: Anti-heroes make great protagonists, they make up almost all of modern storytelling.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: But what it does mean is they just have to be a tad lighter.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: If they're a tad lighter, then everything else that's happening around them, or more human, maybe.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, going back to one of those character traits, relatability.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Relatability has to do with how human is this character?
27:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, how much could we relate to this character?
27:45
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that we can do that more to this character and less to that character, and that makes him or her relatively better than this other character.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: These are all techniques and that we see in modern storytelling all the time.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: We just don't realize it unless you're actually looking for it, right?
28:04
SPEAKER_01: Which most of us aren't.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: We just want to be entertained.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: We'll get back to the conversation in just a minute, but I want to take a moment to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, Vellum.
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29:00
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29:03
SPEAKER_00: Now let's get back to the conversation.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: It is it is interesting to think about this through the lens of so I'm I'm rewatching the Sopranos.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: I've seen the whole series once or twice.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: And occasionally I go back and I'll rewatch Breaking Bad or Sopranos or some some other really successful TV show.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Just because I feel like the hallmark of a good TV show is you pick up on things every time that you watch it that you didn't see there before.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Because you're different as a person, you know, good storytelling has layers to it.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting because a character like Tony Soprano, you know, he may be doing something bad like the episode I watched the other day was he strangles some guy who this was in the first in season one, he strangles some guy who um was in the mafia and then he got out and he was supposed to be in witness protection or something.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the episode is called college.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: I remember but then like in the next episode, he he's celebrating his birthday with his kid, and they're he's got the whipped cream on and they're having fun, and you're like, you're like, man, the fact that he's a good dad in that scene kind of makes you feel bad about feeling bad about him as he's strangling the guy.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting how they make you feel a lot of sympathy for people, even when they're doing horrible things to other people.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: Totally agree.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: You've also picked probably one of, if not the best, not just TV shows, um, pieces of art that we've had in the last I don't know, 25 years.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's things that that show does extremely well that are shining examples of any of what to do if anyone really wants to dig in.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: And one of them is exactly what you're saying is providing how to provide empathy for a character, how to provide sympathy to a main character.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, Aristotle he has an idea that says the best stories are about families and friends.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that clearly is a story about family and friends.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh we have this sense about Tony Soprano that he is a good person if his life went differently.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: We don't totally buy that he's a bad person at his core, even though he's doing terrible things.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: And that's really to the setup of that show.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that show would not be interesting if it was about the boss of a mob family.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting because it's about the boss of a mob family who can't get over the fact who can't win his mother's love and he's in therapy.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: So he's the boss of everybody, but his mother still controls him and annoys him and belittles him, and he's nothing to her.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: And that idea is what makes that show tick.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: If without that, you don't have that show.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: But that's the brilliance in that show, right?
32:06
SPEAKER_01: Is it's an extremely interesting idea that was then executed on it perfectly, and not for nothing, James Gandalfini as Tony Soprano.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: Talk about a true character.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, there's never been, there's never been a better match ever.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: And when you dig deeper into that show and see how much it beat him up as a human and how how how much he how many times he almost stopped and didn't do the show, and he missed episodes and he struggled.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: It's because he was so intertwined with that character and doing things that were morally scrupulous, hitting women, throwing them on the ground, and he was so into it.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: It was so believable to make another that's another Aristotelian, you know, no story should, you know, above everything, story shouldn't contain any unbelievable parts, you know, believability being essential to an Aristotelian story.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: It was incredibly believable.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: You felt like you actually knew Tony Soprano.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: And that's what, in my opinion, makes that show so powerful.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, his performance, it's on that that actor character matches unlike any I've ever seen any I've ever watched.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the, to me, one of the most fascinating elements of that show is how they use the therapist scenes as a framing device.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what kicks off literally the very first thing you see in episode one in The Pilot.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's almost kind of like this.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: It I know it's not the same thing, but kind of like this idea of the Greek choruses over here sort of commenting on what's happening.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting because you have the what happens in the story, but then you hear his commentary and the therapist commentary and his thoughts on what's happening in the story while he's in the therapist chair.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: And I just think that is such an interesting device that adds this whole layer to it.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
34:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the whole I mean, I couldn't agree more.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's i it's it's a very, very unique way to provide uh exposition in a story and to provide uh reasoning.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, one of I hate to keep pulling it back to Aristotle, but it's kind of talking about so yeah, it's kind of ingrained in me.
34:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, one of his core, one of his six components of a story is reasoning.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: And what he means by that is why the characters are doing what they're doing, and what you learn through that lens of the therapist is why Tony is doing what he's doing and what's at the heart of what he is doing.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: And also it also hits on character, which is you know the moral disposition of Tony.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, we we we can't see that totally when he's around his friends and his family, but when his guard is down, we really get a lens, lens on his character and his reasoning, right?
35:02
SPEAKER_01: And all of the things that make up his actions, which are the most important part, right?
35:08
SPEAKER_01: And these are all Aristotelian concepts that I'm kind of emphasizing here as I'm speaking.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: Um and so yeah, I mean, I totally agree.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: You you picked a show that I've I've seen that show uh that series five times.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, yeah, that's amazing.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's one that I watch annually, and then it's funny how you said it changes every time you watch it, because one of the things that I realized the last time I watched it that it never hit me before, and I think why so many men relate, and this is almost sad in in some respects, but Tony is so angry, and I think that that gets at something that rests at the heart of a lot of men, and it's it's it's sad in a way, but it's honest, and I never noticed how angry Tony was until this last time I watched it.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: But now what I and I'm curious the next time I watch it, if it if it's gonna illuminate the whole time I watch it, or because I made that recollection the last time, I'm gonna make peace with it.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Not that it's a bad thing, it's just I think that that's one of the big reasons why so many men resonated with that character.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: There's something also I didn't mean for this to be a Sopranos episode, but but I think this is I love talking about this because I'm literally re-re-watching the whole series right now.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: But there is like a theme in the show where it's it's a theme where he is constantly disappointing the women in his life, whether it's his mother, his wife, or his therapist, they're always unhappy with him on some level.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of, and you know, for my female listeners, don't be like offended by this, but I think I think a lot of men relate to that because there is this element to where uh I'm trying to choose my words carefully here.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: It's like no matter what you what no matter what level of success you achieve professionally, you could publish all the books, you could have all the success, you could do this or that.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, there is some level that I think most men, especially as you approach midlife, where you kind of feel like the women in your life are just always disappointed in you.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, and that you can't it doesn't matter, and that that's not a I'm not making a commentary about men and women.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm just I'm saying that is oftentimes men's perception that it doesn't matter what you achieve, you just can't make any everybody happy.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's interesting, which gives rise to that anger that you're talking about.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's interesting that you point that out.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: Uh, because I didn't make that connect.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: I've watched, like I said, I've watched it the whole series five times, and I've never actually keyed in on that.
38:07
SPEAKER_01: And I know it exists because I've seen it so much now that you've said it, but it's it's an interesting thing to think about.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: I think about this idea that most of us when we go to work, whatever that work is, and I'm using air quotes, right?
38:26
SPEAKER_01: You you are the and I hate to uh you I'll use a less gendered word.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, you are the man, right?
38:32
SPEAKER_01: Like you are the you are the the star of the show, you know your stuff, right?
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Like you are you're the boss, right?
38:40
SPEAKER_01: You're the boss of the families, and you get call the shots, but there's something to be said that every single person, man or woman, gets humbled when they come back through those doors of home.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Because kids are your spouse.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: Because you're not that person anymore.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: You're not the genius writer, you're not the doctor, you're not the lawyer, you're the dad, you're the husband, you're the boyfriend, you're the son, you're just the guy that's there who's you know, like it's and or and the same goes for women.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: We're we're two men talking about this, so it's through the lens of the male experience.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: Interesting to bring in a female into this conversation.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it would, because this is very much through the male experience, right?
39:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, and but I do think that there's something very human about that for all genders, you know, for men and women, that you go, the home becomes this, oh, which which is also a positive, right?
39:39
SPEAKER_01: It's also a positive because that's what makes home comforting.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: And I would also think for I don't want to put words into anybody's mouth, but I've been married almost 30 years, and my wife and I have had about a million conversations about this.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: So I feel safe in in saying that I think for most women, especially as they approach, you know, maybe 40 or 50 and older, that there's this sense in which, you know, men come home and sometimes you feel like, man, I can, it doesn't matter what I do, my wife isn't happy with me, or my kids aren't happy with me.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: I can never sort of be enough or whatever.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: But I think for women, probably that is amplified by a thousand times because as a woman in midlife, because I talk to women all the time in that age range, and that there seems to be a clear sense of it doesn't matter what I do as a woman or what professional or family achievements I have.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: Society is not happy with me because I've got to look a certain way, I'm gonna act a certain way, I've got to show up in life a certain way.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter how beautiful a woman is or how successful she is, there's always a sense of this insecurity, and like I'm just not enough.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: And I yeah, I I couldn't that's my sense.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't, I couldn't agree with you more there because I feel like when I'm having conversations with m groups of men, which I do often, friends, and I think that they oftentimes I and I don't know if this is just because we're it's when you're around a lot of guys, this is how the conversation, you know, it sometimes it's different if it's different than when you're in mixed company.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: If it's just yeah, there's leeway, but I do feel like there is an underappreciation for the fact that the way society perceives females is through the physical lens.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't think most of us guys really get that.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: No, and and and and there is a natural, very natural, biological deterioration of the physical body.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: And so the constant thinking of that, and as a female who is knows wrongly that society society is judging them on this physical component is a lot of weight to bear, it's huge and it's huge, and I think most men don't understand that adequately.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: No, and they all have a and they also don't understand the subtle fear that a lot of women walk around with because of the physical that physical judging that is societal on it on like a daily basis and that is inherent to the world we live in.
42:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
42:26
SPEAKER_01: And there's a subtle fear that I don't have to walk around with that a lot of females do.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
42:33
SPEAKER_01: And all of these things I feel like are very underappreciated uh aspects, or not appreciated, but on uh undervalued aspects of the living experience for females.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, the only reason why, and I'm gonna kind of tie this back to reading, is widespread reading is the reason why I can kind of speak on this because that's what kind of taught me that some of this stuff actually exists.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: It's certainly not being a female because I am not a female.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's through reading and it's through widespread reading, I would say, that um the recognition of some of these concepts and societal pressures and ideas hit home for me.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, gosh, this is this is really good stuff.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: Um about this time last year, I did an experiment.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: So I noticed that, you know, I'm so I'm a ghostwriter, I run a writing membership community.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: Um I talked to basically people all day who were involved in books on some level, whether it's my clients or my members or friends or people I'm coaching or whatever it is.
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I noticed that I that I talked, I felt like I talked to way more women than men.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: And so I actually, this is gonna sound super nerdy, but I did uh for a couple weeks I kept tracking.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Of what percentage of women do I talk to versus men?
44:03
SPEAKER_00: And it came out to about 65 to 70 percent women that I talked to versus you know, around 30 percent men.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: I noticed some of these exact themes that you're talking about cropping up time and time and time again.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: Whereas um women typically like I'm gonna just gonna say 40 to 60 or 65, you know, are very much in an empty nest phase of life.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of fear about do I still have something to contribute to society?
44:30
SPEAKER_00: How do I adjust into a new phase of life?
44:32
SPEAKER_00: Do I really have something to say, et cetera, et cetera?
44:35
SPEAKER_00: And so I've tried to really learn from these women because I feel like the most undervalued segment of our society is women in the second half of life, because they have so much wisdom to share.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, women uh I mean, they've the ones who've had children have been through that experience.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: Um it's just like there's so much depth and strength and wisdom.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of feel like as a society, like why can't we tap into that more?
45:06
SPEAKER_00: Because there's there's so much value there.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: And as a society, we look at women in the second half of life and we tend to devalue women the older that they get as a society, which is like the complete opposite of what it should be.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know what to make of all that, but that's just my observation.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, I I could kind of tie it to back to what we were talking about with the Sopranos.
45:25
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's Carmela's struggle, right?
45:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, that's a great point.
45:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, her struggle is who am I if I am not Tony Soprano's husband?
45:36
SPEAKER_01: And she realizes, even though she realizes she's complicit in a lot of his bad behavior, but at the same time, she desperately wants to rid herself of it, but she doesn't know how because that first half of life is all she's ever been, right?
45:54
SPEAKER_01: So if she was gonna, if we were gonna write a story of Carmelo's life, what would she want?
46:00
SPEAKER_01: What would be her character flaws?
46:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what would be her obstacles, and would she overcome them or would she succumb to them?
46:08
SPEAKER_01: Would it be a comedy or would it be a tragedy?
46:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it would be interesting to explore.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: But that's essentially what you're getting at on a macro level with women as a whole, and we're just making it micro into one character from a from a um and that that and and that shows you how a single protagonistic story affects the experience of or reflects the experience of so many people.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: I know in in the you know, the entrepreneur in the business world, um people talk about the importance of reading all the time, and I obviously I'm a big fan of reading and of writing, but I think it's also important to watch really good TV shows and to read good literature and to watch great movies because you get a sense of of good storytelling in this.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm curious, are there some other TV shows that you feel like for people who really want to learn storytelling, movies or TV shows that you feel like are really essential viewing to help you understand the depth of of storytelling?
47:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so there's a couple different ways that I could take this.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh one of my biggest pet peeves is when people who enjoy reading they say the movie ruined the novel, or the TV show ruined the novel.
47:42
SPEAKER_01: I feel like telling these people, and I know I'm speaking to almost everybody who's listening because everybody thinks that I've thought that in my life.
47:53
SPEAKER_01: It's inevitable, it's inevitable for the TV show or the movie to ruin the novel because in order to dramaticize something, it's a different form, and the scope must be reduced.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: And when the scope is reduced, this makes every storytelling principle or idea much more pronounced.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: When you read a piece of literary fiction, it's much more extraneous, and so it's harder to spot a lot of these storytelling principles.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: Although they're there, there's just a lot more leeway with them.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: And so, how could what is you know, is it like what is one example?
48:35
SPEAKER_01: They're all examples, they're all very, very good examples for writers on storytelling principles because everything that I talk about in Aristotle for Novelists, I first saw on the screen before I saw it on the page.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: And I use examples interchangeably with in the book because of that.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: I will just conclude this little rant here about this uh with there is a technique that is often used in television shows specifically, that is exactly what a like pulled from an Aristotelian idea, and that is a reversal.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: So a reversal is when the character has a change in fortune from good to bad or bad to good.
49:31
SPEAKER_01: So something goes from good to bad or bad to good quickly.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: So if you watch a television show tonight, I challenge everybody.
49:40
SPEAKER_01: Turn on your favorite TV show.
49:42
SPEAKER_01: Character's gonna walk in the room, something is gonna happen to them, but something else is gonna happen that's gonna interrupt that and it's gonna set off a new chain of events.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: And then when they go to do that next thing, but this happens and it sets off another chain of events.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: All that is, in a micro sense, is a reversal.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: We want this, nope, reverse you to that.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: And that is how TV shows play out over and over and over again.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: A great YouTube video by the creators of South Park on this topic, exactly, where they talk about how to create scenes for South Park.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: And they talk about, but this happens, but this happens, and what you're trying to avoid is and.
50:29
SPEAKER_01: But what they don't say, probably what whether they know it or not, is these are Aristotelian ideas.
50:35
SPEAKER_01: This is Aristotle.
50:37
SPEAKER_01: This is just how it exemplifies itself in television, and all stories hinge on another Aristotelian idea, which is which kind of jives with this one on the screen or off the screen.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: And it's one half of a working plot is a connected sequence of events, self-contained connected sequence of events.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: How consequential is your story?
51:05
SPEAKER_01: So if I tell you, if I say to you, Doug Vigliotti walks into the room, what do you expect me to tell you next in that story?
51:13
SPEAKER_01: What happens in when Doug Vigliotti walks in the room?
51:17
SPEAKER_01: Everything has to be consequential.
51:19
SPEAKER_01: Everything is due to cause and effect.
51:22
SPEAKER_01: So when you go watch the television show tonight, watch.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: If that character comes in the room, is what happened next directly related to what came before?
51:34
SPEAKER_01: There's a good chance that it's going to be an effect of that.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: Because that's how all stories are written, including life stories.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a teleporter.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: I can't get to the store down the street without first walking out of my office, then getting into my car.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: All of these things are cause and effect.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: I hit the gas button, it's cause and effect.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: One thing causes the next thing.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: This is life, this is stories, this is page, this is TV shows, screen movies.
52:10
SPEAKER_01: So it's hard for me to give one example because it's in every TV show that you're gonna watch.
52:17
SPEAKER_01: And I and I know that that when someone gives you an absolute, that could be very alarming because it's like it this isn't God or this isn't all knowing.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: But this stuff is so intrinsic to the stories that you that you watch and that you live and that you read that in a in a in a story that works, cause and effect is it's there.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: And no matter no matter what story or what TV show, what movie you're watching, unless you actually, unless it's episodic.
52:56
SPEAKER_01: If it's episodic, which is a variation, uh, like sitcoms or story collections, essay collections.
53:05
SPEAKER_01: I use a good example in uh Aristotle for Novelists.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: I talk about A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which is a literary novel that came out uh back in the 2010s.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: Great novel, but some call it episodic.
53:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's debatable.
53:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, episodic is just each individual episode.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: If you've seen a sitcom, you understand what episodic is.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: Right.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay, one more question here before we uh start to wind this up.
53:33
SPEAKER_00: This has been fantastic, Douglas.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: I've really appreciated your time.
53:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel like I could talk to you for hours about this.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: So for people who are working on fiction who uh maybe I would describe them more as panthers than plotters, you know, they're not really plotting out a whole thing.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: How could they apply some of these lessons to what they're doing if they're not plotting out their whole story in advance?
53:55
SPEAKER_01: Yes, so this is a great question because I do think that the majority of fiction writers, I don't want to say the majority because I meet a lot of fiction writers who plot, I plot, but I don't plot scenes, I just plot plot points and then connect the dots, so to speak.
54:14
SPEAKER_01: So there's some pantsing in the middle, I guess.
54:16
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
54:17
SPEAKER_01: Um but I would say for pants, whether you realize it or not, if your story works, these principles are going to be there.
54:26
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
54:27
SPEAKER_01: So utilizing these principles as a framework to go back to your story after you've written it, that is probably a good idea to say, am I executing on this efficiently?
54:43
SPEAKER_01: Because they're there.
54:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, they might not be there vividly, they may not be there well, but they are there.
54:53
SPEAKER_01: And so if you're not utilizing them to create your story, maybe utilize them to review your story.
55:00
SPEAKER_01: And I will just close with this for all pants or plotters, all writers or people who want to live their story, right?
55:12
SPEAKER_01: The best piece of it writing advice that I ever heard was all you have to do is write what is logically supposed to happen next.
55:26
SPEAKER_01: Don't pay attention to anything else.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: What would logically happen next after this happens?
55:33
SPEAKER_01: Write that that and that for me has been so bulletproof.
55:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, it hasn't always made the best scene or chapter or life story, but it's definitely giving me something to edit, which is something to uh say for itself.
55:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, you you want it's better to have something than nothing.
55:55
SPEAKER_01: And and here's the last tip, actually, because I have another avoid the mistakes that make you shake your head.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: When you're watching a TV show and you're like, where did that come from?
56:08
SPEAKER_01: That's not believable.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: Like, what?
56:11
SPEAKER_01: Remember that.
56:12
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
56:13
SPEAKER_01: When you're watching, when you're reading uh something and you're like, wait a minute, what just happened?
56:21
SPEAKER_01: This just completely went off the deep end.
56:24
SPEAKER_01: Or I hate that this character does this, or I hate the way this person wrote this.
56:30
SPEAKER_01: You're shaking your avoid those mistakes with your own work.
56:36
SPEAKER_01: It's the best teacher I know, and for that you need to be a critic, not publicly, but privately.
56:41
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
56:43
SPEAKER_00: This is good stuff.
56:44
SPEAKER_00: This is really good stuff.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, I appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us.
56:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, congratulations on this amazing book, which I love.
56:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you got in touch.
56:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, how can people find out more about your your work, your own novels, and all the cool other stuff that you're doing?
57:03
SPEAKER_01: So the easiest way is to just go to my website, Douglasvigliati.com.
57:08
SPEAKER_01: But if they want to know more about the book, they can visit Aristotle for Novelists.com.
57:13
SPEAKER_01: So the title of the book.com and all information there about the book.
57:18
SPEAKER_01: Also, if they're interested in um, there's a 10 question assessment there that I have.
57:25
SPEAKER_01: I've created it with the as like a nifty resource to go along with this book.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: And all it is is uh an assessment that helps someone determine if they have a working story based on Aristotelian principles.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: And all the questions are formed in yes or no answers.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: So it's uh that's all available on uh Aristotlefornovelist.com.
57:45
SPEAKER_01: So my website or Aristotlefornovelist.com.
57:48
SPEAKER_01: Best place.
57:49
SPEAKER_00: Have you thought about putting together a course based on this book?
57:52
SPEAKER_01: I have, I definitely have uh it's something that uh uh it's on the docket, and I don't know when or how I'm gonna get to it, but it you are probably the fourth or fifth person now that's asking me.
58:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I can sense that there is some demand for this.
58:14
SPEAKER_01: There's a market for it.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: There's a market for it.
58:16
SPEAKER_01: Um so it might encourage me to do it faster than uh than I typically would, but there there definitely is uh some potential for for me developing uh an online course around the material.
58:32
SPEAKER_01: I'd say go for it.
58:34
SPEAKER_01: And mostly because and I I think I already said this, and maybe I'm violating a redundancy principle that I have for myself.
58:44
SPEAKER_01: But this material is ingrained in me because it's how I learned story, it's not something that I read to write this book.
58:54
SPEAKER_01: So when I watch shows, read books, I can't help but see it through the lens of these principles and this material because it's how I learned.
59:06
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what makes teaching it more of a pleasure for me than if I just read something to create a book to write it, because it I truly feel like it's coming from like inside of me.
59:21
SPEAKER_01: Like I don't have, I don't need, I can lecture on this for an hour without any notes if I had to, because it's just in me.
59:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not in that is inspiring to me from a teaching standpoint.
59:35
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
59:36
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, Douglas, thank you again for being a guest on uh the Profitable Rider Podcast.
59:41
SPEAKER_00: I've really enjoyed this conversation.
59:43
SPEAKER_00: Great book, and uh, I'm gonna be excited to have you back again at some point.
59:46
SPEAKER_00: This will be a blast.
59:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my pleasure to come back and thank you for having me.
59:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I really, really appreciate it.
59:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, it uh means means everything to me.
59:56
SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much.
59:57
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
59:58
SPEAKER_00: My pleasure.
59:59
SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for joining us for another episode of The Profitable Writer.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you taking time to listen, and I'm looking forward to the next episode, which is going to feature a conversation with Tim Carter on writing for feature films and video games.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a really, really fun episode.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_00: Super looking forward to sharing that with you, and I will see you then.
1:00:18
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