logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2021
29m 36s

Melodrama

Night Vale Presents
About this episode

Mightly push your powerful writing to the top of the highest literary peaks! Or… work on your craft.

CONSUME: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett or its sequel, World Without End. Or, for a less committal and free option, the BBC fiction podcast "Home Front"

CREATE: Think about an obscure subject you know a great deal about. Now write a 200-600 word story that has the following plot: Person A, who is evil, kidnaps Person B, who is good. Person C, who is also good, rescues Person B, goodly, and in the process, Person A accidentally falls off a cliff because they are evil and that’s what happens to evil. Person B and Person C live happily ever after. You can play with the details but you get the point, a simple melodramatic story.

Join the SWT Membership community to share your work, give feedback, and connect with other artists: https://www.patreon.com/startwiththis

Help spread the word about our show by wearing our logo: https://topatoco.com/collections/startwiththisFollow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Credits: Jeffrey Cranor (host) & Joseph Fink (host), Jeffrey Cranor (producer), Grant Stewart (editor), Vincent Cacchione (mixer). Rob Wilson (logo).

Theme written and performed by Joseph Fink. If you'd like your own cover of the theme song featured on this show, email us at startwiththis@nightvalepresents.com or share it in our membership community.

Produced by Night Vale Presents.

http://www.startwiththispodcast.comhttp://www.nightvalepresents.com

Up next
Sep 2021
Perceiving the Audience w/Sarah Maria Griffin
Author and poet Sarah Griffin joins us to talk about how the awareness of an audience affects our writing. Guest: Sarah Maria Griffin, https://twitter.com/griffski CONSUME: “AACK Cast!” a podcast about the comic strip Cathy by Jamie Loftus CREATE: Write a 200-400 word monologue f ... Show More
58m 48s
Aug 2021
The Burnout Cycle w/Janina Matthewson
Burnout is real and it comes around on the regular. Guest: Janina Matthewson, https://twitter.com/j9andif CONSUME: Keep Your Hands off Eizouken! (anime series) CREATE: Think of a story or project you’ve let sit idle. Write a letter from the point of view of someone who has just b ... Show More
50m 43s
Jul 2021
Minimal w/Brie Williams
Writing more with less. Guest: Brie Williams, https://twitter.com/briezillionaire CONSUME: Getting on with James Urbaniak (podcast), specifically episode 22 “Status” CREATE: Write a 200-400 word short story, It can be a monologue. Or it can be a dialogue. But every sentence must ... Show More
37m 16s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 2023
Paradoxical
The completion of the series started with At My Most Human State***Paradoxical***Written by: EmpyRealInvective***The Journal of Kaneonuskatew Blackwood***Written by: EmpyRealInvective and Narrated by: Joey Sorliss***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound Desi ... Show More
47m 41s
Jul 2021
337 Oscar Wilde, Ovid, and the Myth of Narcissus (with A. Natasha Joukovsky)
Debut novelist A. Natasha Joukovsky (The Portrait of a Mirror) joins Jacke for a discussion of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ovid's myth of Narcissus, the fascinating power of recursions, and a life lived in the worlds of literature, business, and art.THE PORTRAIT OF ... Show More
1h 3m
Apr 2017
89 Primo Levi
Primo Levi (1919-1987) lived quietly and wrote with restraint. An Italian Jewish writer, professional chemist, and Holocaust survivor, he was, said Italo Calvino, “one of the most important and gifted writers of our time.” Host Jacke Wilson takes a look at his life, his mysteriou ... Show More
1h 3m
Dec 2017
124 James Joyce’s “The Dead” (Part 2)
In this second part of a two-part episode, we look at the resounding conclusion of James Joyce’s masterpiece “The Dead,” which contains some of the finest prose ever written in the English language. Be warned: this episode, which runs from Gabriel’s speech to the final revelatory ... Show More
1h 26m
Sep 2019
Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes (with Yuval Taylor)
They were collaborators, literary gadflies, and champions of the common people. They were the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance. Their names were Zora Neale Hurston (1891 - 1960), the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967), the author of ... Show More
1h 3m
Feb 2023
Let's Go Home
It’s Black history month and here at Something Scary we are thrilled to feature and uplift the voices of talented Black writers in our horror community. Make sure you listen each week in February to hear tales from these amazing writers. Let’s go back to basics with stories of th ... Show More
32m 41s
Jun 2020
The Seven Deadly Sins
As with Santa's reindeer or Snow White's seven dwarves, we all know the phrase "Seven Deadly Sins" even if we struggle to remember the exact list. But who came up with this concept? And who decided that Pride, Envy, Wrath, Lust, Sloth, Greed, and Gluttony were the seven qualities ... Show More
1h 22m
Oct 2022
NINE II MIDNIGHT - Prologue
On the Eve of Halloween, 14 storytellers make their way to the Darklight Carnival and share horrific tales of mystery and murder… but not all is as it seems.This October 30th, the feed you’re listening to now, along with all other participating shows, will post two episodes simul ... Show More
7m 40s
Mar 2022
S10E014 – "Get on Your Bad Side" – Scary Stories Told in the Dark
Tonight's featured author: Kyle Harrison. Three tales of terror grace your ears this evening: first, an honest attempt to create something good for the world takes on a terrible life of its own; second, a fun trip to an amusement park leads to some strange personality changes for ... Show More
1h 6m
Aug 2017
106 Literature Goes to the Movies, Part Two – Flops, Bombs, and Stinkeroos
Ah, the sweet smell of success… and the burning stench of failure. Continuing their two part conversation on literary adaptations, Jacke and Mike choose ten of the worst book-to-movie projects of all time. How could so many people, working so hard and with such great source mater ... Show More
1h 10m