Episode 1: Channeling Master Thespian

The first episode! Matt Bird (author of The Secrets of Story) and James Kennedy (author of the novel The Order of Odd Fish) have a lively debate about how charitable you should be to your own writing.

Big admirer of Bird's book

I came to this podcast after reading Bird's first book on the secrets of story. Specifically the bits on writing likeable antiheroes were exceptionally illuminating because he's answered my most difficult writing questions. Unfortunately Kennedy is less knowledgeable and possibly only good as a sound board. He doesn't seem to have the experience to treat the writing craft at nearly the same depth. I also loved Bird's initiative to give away an idea for free, and his first idea was absolutely brilliant. Not just the idea per se but the way he hinted at the process of coming up with such an idea: you take two other ideas that happen in space, here Precursors and something in history, and you combine them to their logical conclusion. The first dog in space is taken by an advanced civilization to be tested as a representative of humanity. Very clever!