An Interview With Ian Benke
CAN A DIVINE “MOMENT OF GRACE” FIX YOUR CLIMAX? Like many storytelling gurus, Matt claims that a compelling hero must be active and resourceful throughout a story, deploying pre-established skills to solve whatever crises the story throws at them. I agree . . . up to a point! Because I’ve noticed that in many stories, usually at the climax, there’s a certain moment in which those “works” of a hero are no longer effective, and the hero must instead rely on “grace.” Or sometimes the final test isn’t solved by the hero’s efforts, but rather an involuntary but essential property about the hero. In either case, it’s no longer the hero being active and resourceful that puts them over the finish line; rather, it’s something ineffable outside of their mere conscious efforts. I call this the “Moment of Grace,” and we discuss this claim in regards to Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Third Man, Toy Story, Harry Potter, Alien, Silence of the Lambs, The Graduate, and other movies and books.
Science Fiction and Fantasy are hugely popular genres. What does it take for a writer today, to write compelling and successful Science Fiction and Fantasy stories? Authority Magazine started a new series called “How To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories”. In this series we are talking to anyone who is a Science Fiction or Fantasy author, or an authority or expert on how to write compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing James Kennedy, author of Dare to Know.
James Kennedy is the author of The Order of Odd-Fish and the founder and director of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival. Before becoming a writer, he was a software engineer with a degree in physics and philosophy, subjects he continues to explore in his writing. Dare to Know is his first adult novel.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share a story about what first drew you to writing over other forms of storytelling?
You don’t need anyone’s permission to write a novel. You don’t need special or expensive equipment. You don’t need a group of collaborators and technicians. It’s just you and your story. So you can be as idiosyncratic as you want. I like movies and television too, but no matter how freaky they get, visual entertainment is usually made by groups. Groups tend to rub off the rough edges, to smooth the crooked, to homogenize the weird.
But what if you cherish the rough, the crooked, the weird?
Not all novels are weird, but they do have a unique potential for surprise — because the form is so elastic, and because the stakes are so low. The more money that gets poured into something, the more people it must please. But it costs nothing to write a novel. You can risk pleasing nobody! What a liberation!
Of course, after I wrote Dare to Know, I worked with a capable team to present it to the world: not only my agent, but also all the professionals at Quirk Books like my editor, copy editor, publicists, cover designer, and more. Together they polished Dare to Know and made it beautiful and got the word out about it. I couldn’t do that on my own.
Still, the fact remains that Dare to Know started with a manuscript that I produced in an intensely individual way, all the while thinking “This is too weird, this is too personal, nobody will ever publish this.” And yet that’s the kind of book I like to read — the kind of anomaly that makes you feel like the system glitched, and something that usually would’ve been blocked by various filters somehow slipped through.
In a way, it’s a blessing that novels are a comparative backwater compared to visual entertainment. Ignore us, please! The Washington Post masthead reminds us that “democracy dies in darkness.” Novels aren’t democracy, thankfully. Strange beauty can grow in the dark. Turn off the lights, let us fester.
You are a successful author. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
It is delusional to write a novel and expect any kind of success. The odds are overwhelmingly against you. For instance, I wanted to be published by a traditional publisher, and for that, you need a literary agent. A typical agent gets about a thousand queries a month, but might take on only five new clients a year. And even if you get an agent, there’s no guarantee they can sell your manuscript to a publisher. And even if your book is published, there’s no guarantee anyone will read it — more than a million books are published every year, why should someone read you? Also, think your novel will get into a bookstore? Think again: the chance of that is far less than one percent. Worst of all: most novels sell fewer than a thousand copies. Gulp.
So the first character trait is DELUSIONAL. Did I say earlier that writing a novel is a low-cost endeavor? Actually, no! Maybe you’re not spending money directly by writing, but you’re definitely spending time. That’s time sitting alone writing when you could be making new friends, going on adventures, learning a foreign language, or doing something that actually earns money. You must stupidly, recklessly, egotistically believe that you can beat those odds. You have to be delusional enough to bet on yourself.
What happens when you bet on yourself, though? I’ll tell you: you lose! You lose again and again and again. So the next character trait is TENACIOUS. After my first novel (the young adult fantasy The Order of Odd-Fish) was published, I thought that my big problems were over. I had a big-time literary agent, and I was published by a big-time publisher, so what could go wrong?
Everything! Although The Order of Odd-Fish was one of those few books that did actually make it into bookstores, and even though it picked up a cult following of like-minded oddballs, it wasn’t exactly paying the bills. I had to write another book, and fast! But I was working full-time as a computer programmer and my wife and I had two baby daughters. Where would I find the time? I didn’t. And the stories that I did manage to write were becoming stranger and more adult — not fitting the young adult audience I was supposed to be cultivating. After a few years of writing stuff that my agent didn’t like — she dropped me.
What?! Dropped me! I didn’t know . . . that was a thing . . . agents did! But it happened to me, and so it was back to square one. Heartbreak! Humiliation! I had to query agents again, like a beginner, and keep on writing new stuff — even though I felt like I’d been kicked out of the publishing world. It takes a certain bullheadedness to keep doing this, but I kept cranking out new material and pestering people until I got an agent again, and finally a publisher. That took years. During that time in exile, I had suspected that perhaps I would never be published again. But in the end, that desperate time in the cold was good for my art. My writing style changed. I had been committed to the idea of writing solely for children and young adults, but I eventually realized that I didn’t have to limit myself to that. When I finally got an agent and a publisher again, it was for an adult speculative thriller — and that is Dare To Know.
What sustained me in the years when I was in the wilderness, though? This comes to the third character trait: SHOWMANSHIP. My way of staying relevant in the publishing world was by becoming an impresario of sorts.
It all started when I noticed that, after The Order of Odd-Fish came out, a lot of talented young people were making amazing fan art based on it. I collected the fan art of my book here on my website. A year or so later, some friends and I collaborated to put on a real-life gallery show of that fan art. But it wasn’t just an art show — it was also a costumed dance party and sacrificial ritual. People came dressed up to the gallery as characters and god-monsters from the book, and we organized an elaborate dance competition that went late into the night, culminating in a bizarre over-the-top ceremony based on a scene in the book. Highlighting this fan art and working with creative friends to pull off this large-scale event got me media coverage I never would’ve received otherwise. The experience taught me that it’s not enough just to write a book and hope the world finds it somehow. I had to force attention with live, in-person events. In short, I had to harness my sense of showmanship!
Inspired in part by the experience of the fan art show, I started the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival — an annual video contest in which kid filmmakers create short movies that tell the stories of Newbery-winning books in about 90 seconds. (The Newbery Medal is the highest honor in children’s literature.) I’ve been running this film festival for ten years now, and it’s given me the excuse to travel around the country doing live screenings annually in cities across the U.S. — in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Oakland CA, Rochester NY, Tacoma WA, Ogden UT, and other cities. These screenings are attended by hundreds, and I co-host them with other known well-children’s authors. In this way I’ve had the pleasure of befriending authors from all over the country — some of them whom I’ve looked up to for a long time! Almost everyone I’ve met in the literary community — writers, librarians, teachers, and most importantly, readers — have been so generous, enthusiastic, and friendly. (And you’ve got to check out the brilliant and hilarious movies kids have made — I’ve gathered some of the best here.)
By organizing live events that went beyond my own book, I’ve made friends and allies that I never would have otherwise. And I was also able to establish a side hustle that provided some money and continued connection to the literary world even when I felt like I had been cast out of it. Writing is a solitary act, but people are social. We need connection and community, we like helping each other out, and we long to be recognized by our peers. Establishing events that recognized the artistic achievements of others helped me when I felt like I was no longer being recognized, and built the bridge to the time when my writing would be recognized again.
Can you tell us a bit about the interesting or exciting projects you are working on or wish to create? What are your goals for these projects?
I’m working on my next book for Quirk! It’s called Bride of the Tornado. I’m also already starting on a third book for them which is as yet unnamed. After years of not being published, I now intend to strike while the iron is hot.
In the meantime, I’m still doing the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival. An enduring community of young filmmakers, librarians, homeschoolers, families, and teachers have sprung up around this event and it kind of has a momentum of its own now.
For the past few years, I’ve also been doing a podcast called “The Secrets of Story” with Matt Bird, who wrote a well-regarded screenwriting / novel-writing advice book of the same name. In each episode, Matt and I discuss some notion about storytelling craft — either mine or his. We are usually at each other’s throats because we disagree a lot of what makes for a good story. I’m usually more practical and instinctive, Matt is more theoretical and analytical. Usually we argue, sometimes we agree, and often we discover something new together. I like Matt’s advice because it’s often counterintuitive, and I admire his cussedness.
Some of my favorite episodes are the ones where we draw unexpected connections, like in Episode 25, when we investigate what storytellers can learn from cult leaders — indeed, we demonstrate how many good stories share techniques with brainwashing practices. Doing this podcast serves as a kind of workshop or colloquium that helps me as a writer, giving me a forum to develop my half-formed ideas in real time, trying to understand what makes a story tick.
Wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. How do you define sci-fi or fantasy? How is it different from speculative fiction?
I don’t worry about those definitions. They’re not helpful for when I’m actually writing. These are probably hotly contested distinctions among people who have invested energy in defending the borders between one genre and another. But for me, the important thing is the story that I want to tell, and I tell it as best I can. Deciding what box to put it in is something for later, when I’m trying to explain it to someone, or to convince someone to buy it. But I feel like it’s poison to care about such externalities when I’m in the heat of actual creation, of reaching into my guts to forge something new. Genre definitions don’t get me too far at those moments.
It seems that despite countless changes in media and communication technologies, novels and written fiction always survive, and as the rate of change increases with technology, written sci-fi becomes more popular. Why do you think that is?
Is written sci-fi becoming more popular? I wonder if that’s actually true. It’s certainly true that we are living in a world that is changing so quickly that it’s easy for some science fiction to feel oddly antique — which is weird for a genre that’s supposed to be about “the future”! For instance, I was rereading Isaac Asimov’s classic Foundation novels lately, which were written in the 1940s, but are supposed to occur thousands of years in humanity’s future — and yet at one point, when a scientist has to calculate something, he absurdly whips out a slide rule. Similarly, when I recently reread Ray Bradbury’s amazing Martian Chronicles, I was struck by how it wasn’t really about the future at all, as I had thought when I read it as a kid — it was really about 1940s America, and nostalgia, and colonial guilt. Rereading these science-fiction classics put modern sci-fi in a new light for me. Science fiction is not really about keeping up with the “countless changes in media and communication technologies” — although there are no computers or social media in those books, I don’t miss them, and I don’t think that makes them bad or inaccurate sci-fi. Science fiction is about illuminating the times that we live in, and timeless things about ourselves, using the metaphors of the future. Since written sci-fi doesn’t rely on gee-whiz special effects that will probably look clunky in a few years, it has more of a chance of lasting longer. And since written sci-fi can address themes that are more complex or perhaps hard to film — after all, the Apple TV+ adaptation of Foundation has little in common with the universally-agreed-to-be-unfilmable novel — it can satisfy appetites that visual entertainment can’t. The worst books are those that don’t have the confidence in their bookish nature, that don’t take advantage of the form, that are just sort of emaciated screenplays hoping to become a movie. Ugh! Have the courage of your medium!
In your opinion, what are the benefits to reading sci-fi, and how do they compare to watching sci-fi on film and television?
There is no benefit to reading science fiction. Or at least, I hope there isn’t. And if there is, I hope nobody finds out what it is. The worst thing that can happen to art is for it to become respectable, to be considered as something that is “good for you.” Science fiction had its golden age when literary people considered the genre to be juvenile, unserious, and embarrassing. Now that science fiction has become more respectable, is it really as exciting? Vital, unruly punk energy resists being enlisted for causes, it rightfully doesn’t want to help you, it goes its own swinging way and if you’re lucky, maybe it’ll let you tag along. The adventure of art is that you submit to it. You let it take you somewhere. You don’t expect a benefit, you don’t even want one. Maybe you’ll get hurt, maybe you won’t, maybe it’ll be a good experience, maybe bad, but for me, the whole thrill is surrendering myself to it, without any expectation of earning some new virtue or snagging some nugget of information. I just want to be overwhelmed, thrilled, transported.
As for the difference between reading sci-fi and watching it on film and television — I don’t know what to make of the question. I love Frank Herbert’s novel Dune, I am haunted and baffled by David Lynch’s 1984 movie Dune, and I greatly enjoyed Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 movie of Dune. But they are three such different experiences, from three strongly individual artists, that they are kind of incommensurable.
In general, I suppose the difference between reading and watching sci-fi is the same as any other genre: reading lends itself to deliberative, subtle, patient satisfactions, and watching must satisfy the lizard brain. Different pleasures. I value both experiences. But for me, it’s not useful to compare them.
What authors and artists, dead or alive, inspired you to write?
My latest novel Dare to Know is about a down-and-out salesman who works for a company — also called Dare To Know — that can calculate the exact time of your death. There’s just one rule: a salesman is not allowed to look up their own death-date. But late one night, feeling desperate for many reasons, our hero breaks that rule, looks himself up — and discovers he had died 23 minutes ago. The algorithm is never wrong, but he’s still alive, so what’s going on? This sets him off on a journey, across the country and through his own memories, to confront the decisions of his life, and to solve the mystery of why the seemingly infallible math fails solely for him. In particular, he seeks out his old flame Julia, whom he loved and lost while they were both climbing the ranks at Dare To Know, because she’s the one person who can confirm whether his math is correct. This book is a thriller in some ways, but in other ways it’s a fever dream that’s also about haunted video games, an occult alternative history of science, the dark side of startup culture, and conspiracy theories about Top 40 music.
But as far afield as these ideas went, they all connect to a love story about the one who got away, about how ambitions fail and get rekindled, about how relationships change from childhood to adulthood. In the end, Dare to Know isn’t just about death, it’s also about coming to understand and reckon with the life you lived, the good and the bad.
What inspired a story like Dare to Know? One of my big inspirations was the science fiction short stories of Ted Chiang — he wrote a short story called “The Story of Your Life” that the movie Arrival was based on. Ted Chiang often takes an ingenious, impossible-seeming premise and pushes it to its logical and emotional limit. I, too, wanted to write something that had an immediately intriguing, impossible-seeming “hook” — What if you could know the exact moment of your death? And what if it had already happened? — and use that for a jumping-off point into wilder and more personal territory.
That’s when my next inspiration comes in — Philip K. Dick. He who wrote the short stories that movies like Blade Runner and Minority Report were based on. Ted Chiang is a very precise and careful writer, but in Dick’s prose sometimes overruns his limits and dips into territory that is more hallucinatory and trippy. I wanted Dare to Know to have it both ways: to harness both the controlled discipline of Chiang and the visionary excess of Dick.
Going beyond writers, I also found inspiring the movies of Charlie Kaufman. His screenplays are often about the ordinary world that we live in, except there’s one sci-fi element about it that can open the way to exploring far-out ideas and deep emotions. His movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is basically set in our world, except there’s a technology that can erase your memories. And in Being John Malkovich, it’s basically our world again, except that there’s a weird door that leads you inside John Malkovich’s consciousness.
It’s a durable formula: our own world, with one intriguing technological twist. So how far can you push that formula before it breaks? I wanted Dare to Know to begin grounded, like those movies, and gradually earn the right to pull the reader beyond that into something more psychedelic and nightmarish. In that way, David Lynch was another big inspiration . . . after all, Twin Peaks starts as a normal police procedural, and only gets weird later. And so when Dare to Know starts getting very 2001: A Space Odyssey toward the end, we still feel that it’s about people, it’s a story that’s mind-bending but also human.
If you could ask your favourite Science Fiction and Fantasy author a question, what would it be?
I wouldn’t! Never meet your heroes. I once got to speak at an event with Neil Gaiman. I had read most of his stuff and I had admired him for years. But when I was actually backstage with him, hanging out, I found that I had . . . nothing to say to him! Nothing at all. He graciously put me at ease with a joke and we went out and did our thing. It was for the best.
We’d like to learn more about your writing. How would you describe yourself as an author? Can you please share a specific passage that you think exemplifies your style?
It’s difficult to describe oneself as an author. My first book The Order of Odd-Fish was a comedic fantasy for children. Dare to Know, on the other hand, is an intense, feverish sci-fi thriller for adults.
This question reminds me of a book that impressed me in my twenties — an unfinished book by Evelyn Waugh called Work Suspended. I’m a big fan of Waugh. I count him as a master and an influence. Like me, he made his early career writing humorously — these very funny if maybe brittle, kind of merciless comic novels.
But in his middle age his style underwent a sea change, and he wrote this melancholy, odd book Work Suspended. Even though the plot isn’t much to speak of, I remember being very drawn in by its confessional tone and the narrator coming to terms with who he is, when life is no longer a matter of madcap future possibilities, but reckoning with what you’ve done, your own history. And it put death at the center in a calm, non-hysterical way that I found really engaging.
I read Work Suspended in my twenties and I thought, I don’t feel ready to write something like that, but I really admire it. Re-engaging with that book in my forties gave me a secret passage that let me shift — like Evelyn Waugh had — from a humorous register to a more serious one: in my case, from writing funny YA fantasy to writing something somber and ambitious and dreamlike for adults.
It’s dangerous for an author to describe themselves. You want to be aim for your influences (“I’m trying to write like Evelyn Waugh“) but you don’t want to be vainglorious (“I see myself as an heir to Evelyn Waugh”) and you don’t want to humblebrag (“This reviewer compared me to Evelyn Waugh, isn’t that crazy?!”) but you don’t want to have false modesty either (“Who me? I could never write as well as Evelyn Waugh!”). Traps everywhere!
With those caveats, here is the beginning of Dare to Know (which is nothing like Evelyn Waugh):
I have death in my pocket. Folded up, ready to go. Ordinarily I wouldn’t take on a client like this, but I have to make this sale.
Driving up 290 through gray December slush to Starbucks. My own office is long gone. Now I’ve got to do business at a cruddy table for two — not ideal, but three bucks for coffee beats thousands of dollars a month on rent, upkeep, a secretary . . . did I really used to have a secretary? What’d she even do? In any case, the margins aren’t there anymore. Took a while for me to understand that. Reality is, this is no longer a classy business.
I’d done the initial calculation in advance. Checked it again. Stuck it in my wallet. I need this to go smoothly.
Once upon a time, this business was strictly referral. We’d pick and choose. Ads? Please. We wouldn’t even give you a follow-up meeting if we pegged you as obnoxious or, worse, “delicate” — because we weren’t just salespeople; we had to be on-the-spot therapists too. Had to handle the client’s reaction. Got special training for that, way back when. Unpredictable, the way the client would take it. You might tell some successful pillar of society “thirty-one years” and he’d freak out and spiral into a nervous breakdown right in front of you. Whereas to some loser you might say “two years” and he’d actually shape up, get his life in order. Finding out was the smartest move he’d ever made.
I developed an eye for it. Could sense how someone would react. Got consulted on hard cases. No sale’s worth a meltdown. It’s bad for business, that’s why management gave us discretion back then. I mean the old management, Blattner and Hansen, before they cashed out. Anyway, I’d make my judgment. Jack up the price if my client wasn’t taking it seriously. Raise it until they did. But cut them a discount, too, if I sensed the need. Not purely out of altruism. If customers are running around bitching they wish we’d never told them, that’s bad PR. But those times when it worked out — we loved those inspiring stories. Or marketing did.
We could afford to turn away business back then, back when the calculations could take several days to complete and we charged upwards of twenty million a pop. Now any joker who can scrape up twenty grand can get their answer in an hour. And believe me, if I don’t jump on that sale, Martin McNiff will. So even when I’m at some dingy food court, looking in a client’s eyes, and I know that when I say “three years,” it’ll destroy her, I think of alimony, college for the boys, the condo, this joke of a car — I just need that shitty fifteen percent.
Parking at Starbucks, I shut off the engine. Sit there a minute. Drizzle flecks the windshield. Not even four o’clock and it’s already dark. Never thought I’d end up here, right where I started. Always thought I’d make it out to California or something. Julia did.
Put my game face on. We used to give it a sense of occasion. Called it the Moment. I still prefer to give it a sense of occasion. Not pretentious, just basic self-respect, respect for the client, respect for what I’m selling. It’s part of the service. Outdated philosophy, I know. Still, it doesn’t feel right to me, to tell my client in this mini-mall coffee shop, barely a step up from a McDonald’s. Here’s what surprises me, though: clients don’t care. Some actually complain: “why can’t you just tell me over the phone” — well, Martin McNiff will tell you over the phone, sure. He’ll even text it to you. But I don’t. Look, I get it. I’m old-fashioned.
When you have your Moment, there should be a sense of occasion.
So many treat it like it’s no big deal now. I’ve had clients actually call up their friends as soon as they find out. Blabbing it in a lighthearted, isn’t-it-funny way. That’s the worst. When they joke about it. Baffles me. Back when I was starting out you’d actually get to see the client’s face change in front of your eyes. Disbelief. Terror. Relief. Hopelessness. Something. Now: nothing. Like I’m giving them a quote for drywall.
When we started out, when we were still Sapere Aude, it was hard for us to get taken seriously. But one hundred percent accuracy makes the skeptics shut up.
It was most satisfying when the skeptics shut up permanently. On precisely the time and date we predicted.
Based on your own experience and success, what are the “Five Things You Need To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories?” If you can, please share a story or example for each.
This kind of question is right up my alley! Here are five unique pieces of general writing advice that I’ve worked out with Matt Bird on our Secrets of Story podcast:
1. EPISODE 19: BELIEVE, CARE, INVEST. Look, I love likeable characters. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to fall in love with Cassandra Mortmain of Dodie Smith’s I Capture The Castle, and it’s hard not to feel tenderness for the warm decency of Reverend John Ames in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. But the stupidest criticism someone can make of a story is that the main character “isn’t likeable.” It’s the most common criticism you see on Goodreads or whatever, even though some of the most compelling main characters in literature have been quite unlikeable: how appetizing is Lolita’s Humbert Humbert? Or the narrator of Notes From Underground? Or Frederick Exley’s alter ego in A Fan’s Notes?
Matt came up with a theory that a main character doesn’t necessarily have to be likeable for the story to succeed. Rather, successful stories must make the audience Believe, Care and Invest early on. That is, you must make the audience Believe in the reality of the character and their world, usually through oddly specific details. Then the storyteller must make the audience Care for that protagonist by subjecting them to suffering, embarrassment, or humiliation (often tied to the hero’s flaw, but in an outsized way that’s out of proportion with what the hero deserves). And then the storyteller must make the audience Invest in the hero by demonstrating the hero is capable of solving the kind of problems this story will throw at them. In the episode I linked to above, Matt and I go into the ins and outs of his theory.
2. EPISODE 22: WHAT IS THE “HOLY MOMENT” OF YOUR STORY? The origin of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia wasn’t him thinking, “Now I’m going to write a 7-book fantasy series that riffs on classical and medieval adventure tropes, with a lion as a stand-in for Jesus.” Rather, he had a vivid mental image of a faun in the snow with an umbrella and a package. Indeed, if you asked writers, you’ll find most stories have their origins not in some abstract concept but rather in a sublime, overwhelming, pre-verbal image that is emblematic of the entire story, that encapsulates the worldview of the story, that galvanizes and sustains the artist, as well as entrancing the audience. After being busted down from that initial vision, the rest of the story, and the artist’s task, is about climbing back up to the original holy vision, to transform and redeem it. In this episode we discuss Hayao Miyazaki’s creative process, “reconfirming your starting points,” the opening credits of sitcoms, the James Bond movies, E.T., Jaws, Battlestar Galactica, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Rushmore, Blue Velvet, The Incredibles, The Fugitive, Get Out, Casablanca, and Groundhog Day. You also find out how I almost got hit by a meteor, why I cried to my second-grade teacher “I’m never going to eat Raisin Bran again!”, and why Matt sings the praises of Minneapolis Community and Technical College.
3. EPISODE 13: CAN A DIVINE “MOMENT OF GRACE” FIX YOUR CLIMAX? Like many storytelling gurus, Matt claims that a compelling hero must be active and resourceful throughout a story, deploying pre-established skills to solve whatever crises the story throws at them. I agree . . . up to a point! Because I’ve noticed that in many stories, usually at the climax, there’s a certain moment in which those “works” of a hero are no longer effective, and the hero must instead rely on “grace.” Or sometimes the final test isn’t solved by the hero’s efforts, but rather an involuntary but essential property about the hero. In either case, it’s no longer the hero being active and resourceful that puts them over the finish line; rather, it’s something ineffable outside of their mere conscious efforts. I call this the “Moment of Grace,” and we discuss this claim in regards to Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Third Man, Toy Story, Harry Potter, Alien, Silence of the Lambs, The Graduate, and other movies and books.
4. EPISODE 29: WHEN DO YOU WRITE FOR YOURSELF? WHEN FOR THE STORY? WHEN FOR THE AUDIENCE?: Author Jonathan Auxier visits the podcast to describe his insight that you go through three distinct stages of writing a story: first you’re writing to please yourself (the “author draft”), then you’re revising to perfect the story itself (the “artifact draft”), and finally you’re revising to take the audience’s reactions and sensibilities into account (the “audience draft”). Matt and I love this idea, and we tease out its implications. What if you do the steps in a different order? What if you’re giving or getting notes appropriate to one stage, even though the artistic process is in a different stage? Jonathan’s a smart cookie, and always worth listening to.
5. EPISODE 8: DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE SHADOWY STRUCTURE BEHIND THE HERO’S JOURNEY? In this episode we explore alternative storytelling structures that go beyond the familiar Hero’s Journey scheme. We talk about Boogie Nights, In Search of Lost Time, Brideshead Revisited, The Last Jedi, Beowulf, and other stories that aren’t so much about a hero solving a large problem (which is most stories), but rather about an old world passing away and getting supplanted by a new situation. I bring up the precursor and inspiration to Joseph Campbell, an amateur anthropologist named Lord Raglan (that is, “Fitzroy Richard Somerset, 4th Baron Raglan”). It looks like Joseph Campbell appropriated the first half of Lord Raglan’s hero archetype — about the rise of a hero — for his Hero’s Journey concept, but quietly discarded the other half of Lord Raglan’s structure, which is about the decline of the hero. A hidden second act to the well-known Hero’s Journey! A kind of shadow structure! What happens to the hero after they finish their journey? What is the story about the hero’s decline?
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Entertainment, Business, VC funding, and Sports read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them 🙂
I don’t want to meet the biggest names. It sounds super awkward!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can go to my website www.jameskennedy.com, or follow me on Twitter at @iamjameskennedy or on Instagram as @theonlyjameskennedy. You can hear me on the Secrets of Story podcast and you can keep up with the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival at www.90secondnewbery.com.
Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success.
Author James Kennedy On How To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.