19.47: Final Thoughts on Our Close Reading Series
We reminisce on when we were on a writing retreat on a cruise in 2023, planning this close reading series. We have loved how this series grounded our conversations, allowing us to dive into works that were complex in specific ways. We have loved wading into the waters of voice,…
19.46: An Interview on Structure with N.K. Jemisin
We had the pleasure of sitting down with N.K. Jemisin to talk about the structures and processes that helped create The Fifth Season. We talk about outlines, multiple plotlines, and planets as characters. Jemisin lets us into her writing process—ranging from the influence of poetry in her work to her process of…
19.45: A Close Reading on Structure: Tying It All Together
We’ve loved doing our close reading series throughout 2024, and The Fifth Season has been no different. Today, we’re reflecting on what we learned in our episodes focusing on N.K. Jemisin’s incredible work. We reflect on POV as structure, parallelism, and finding the beating heart of your manuscript. Thing of the Week: I Saw…
19.44: A Close Reading on Structure: Tradition and Innovation
Today we’re zooming out to see where N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season fits into the canon of fantasy literature. How does Jemisin interact with magic, words, and the expectations of the genre? And what expectations do the readers bring themselves? How does Jemisin repurpose parts of the hero’s journey while creating something…
19.43: A Close Reading on Structure: Parallelism and Inversion
The structure of The Fifth Season features both mirroring and inversion. How do these structural shifts interact with the three POVs? On today’s episode, we talk about the parallelism of the perspectives and the linguistic references to seasons. This leads us to the question, how many things need to work in sync…
19.42: A Close Reading on Structure: Whose Perspective is it Anyways?
Structure and POV (point of view) are often intertwined. In N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, we see this in the myriad perspective shifts. In this episode, we talk about the importance of these shifts on the structure of the book. How does the narrator talk directly to us, and what purpose does…
19.41: A Close Reading on Structure: An Overview and Why Fifth Season
Just a reminder that we will be talking about a lot of spoilers, so if you haven’t read The Fifth Season, go and do so now! As we dive into N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, we wanted to tell you why we chose this work to examine the importance of structure. The structure of the…
19.40: An Interview on Tension with P. Djèlí Clark
We sat down with the author of Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark, in order to wrap up our close reading of tension. We talked with Clark about his influences, which ranged from Birth of a Nation to Beyonce’s “Formation.” We dive into contextual vs. narrative tension, why food is the unsung hero of worldbuilding,…
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