Many Genres, One Craft: Lessons in Writing Popular Fiction

TW: Discussion of torture/sexual abuse & if it has a place in stories (it doesn't) from 14:30 to 19:28.

In this conversation, Jacob and Kathleen discuss cyberpunk, noir fiction, and hardboiled detective novels and how to handle traditional noir/detective tropes, often referred to as sexist, and where they have a place in contemporary popular novels (if at all).

We also take a deep dive into the first 500 words of Altered Carbon and discuss how Morgan builds a masterful beginning.

Near the end of the episode, we discuss the concept of the self and how this novel pushes those boundaries to their extremes.

Sources, licensing for nerds:

David Parfit and Reductionism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Parfit

Cyberpunk Remastered: Or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Postmodernism by K. Ceres Wright: https://www.amazon.com/Many-Genres-One-Craft-Lessons/dp/0938467085

All sound effects in the Introduction sourced from freesound.org under attribution license

"Data Corrupted"-- https://freesound.org/people/Saltbearer/sounds/481996/

"Static" -- https://freesound.org/people/joedeshon/sounds/329673/

"Glitch" -- https://freesound.org/people/KatHakaku/sounds/35059/

"Ambient Dreamscape" -- https://freesound.org/people/onderwish/sounds/400670/

Theme Music "Soul Shaker" by Reaktor Productions, sourced from PremiumBeat.com

Narration of first pages of Altered Carbon read by Jacob to add to discussion of themes of the novel


Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/archetypist/message