August 21, 2018 • 33 mins
Subtext is the unspoken meaning behind dialogue, character actions, and setting details. Instead of directly stating a character’s personality or emotions, skilled writers use small, intentional cues—like clothing, posture, or word choice—to subtly communicate deeper truths.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the inside creative writing podcast.
The weekly discussion of craft and technique for
writers of fiction and creative nonfiction.
And now here's your host, writer and educator,
Brad Reed.
Episode 30. Today, we're exploring a technique of
looking at the world from a new perspective
that will result in more engaging writing. I'm
(00:22):
going to try to prove to you that
everything
is an argument.
And welcome back to the Inside Creative Writing
podcast. My name is Brad Reed and I
am so glad that you're spending some time
with me to talk about writing today.
As I'm recording this, it's mid August and
the start of another school year is just
(00:44):
around the corner.
There's always kind of a bittersweet time of
year as those long summer days, full of
plenty of time to write and research and
read and watch great films,
turn into those hectic and grading filled days
of being a high school teacher. I mean,
it's always great to see the kids again
and get back into the classroom. So I'm
(01:04):
looking forward to that. But it's hard to
give up the life of a full time
writer
that, teachers sometimes get to live in the
summer times. And
so this year I'm trying a new experiment.
I'm actually not teaching full time. You see,
I've cut my hours back to make time
to finish the novel I've been working on
since last summer
(01:25):
and devote time to this podcast and the
other resources we've been creating over on our
Patreon page. It's something I'm really excited about
and I'll be sharing a bit of how
that's going
as the, as the year progresses. I'm more
than a little worried about getting that balance
right, between life as a teacher and life
as a writer slash podcaster
(01:47):
but I'm looking forward to the opportunity to
give it a shot.
So I wanted to give you a little
update about the latest book too. I'm getting
close to finishing the process of tearing down
my first draft
and piecing it all back together,
in an order and a sequence that works
better. It's been a lot of work.
And I've been able to cut out a
(02:08):
whole bunch of scenes,
more than I ever thought possible that just
turned out to be not that necessary.
And I feel like I've got a much
better story to tell
for my full,
second draft.
What I thought was going to be
largely just polishing up existing material is going
to end up being
(02:28):
not necessarily a page one rewrite but something
close to that.
There won't be a single sentence that doesn't
get reworked to some extent
as I'm writing the second draft. And that's
really the way I'm thinking of it. It's
not an edit of the first draft. Not
a revision. Not a proofreading.
This is largely
rewriting the story
(02:49):
with scenes and characters and settings that just
plain
work better than they were working in the
first draft.
You know, it's always a daunting task jumping
back into basically
recreate a story that you've already written, but
it is so
worthwhile.
I have no doubt that my final draft
(03:10):
is going to be heads and shoulders above
my rough draft because
of the work I've done tearing it apart
and rebuilding it, putting it back together
to work better.
Now, a lot of this has been done
using the techniques of Sean coin and the
story grid. If you're not familiar with it,
I highly recommend that you check it out.
I'll warn you that it overwhelms
(03:31):
some writers, maybe even most writers, but it
is so worth doing. Or at least some
modification of it that works for you.
Probably the number one question that listeners of
the show have for me is,
how do I revise?
Right? We we learn how to draft. We
kind of understand what it is to sit
down and write the first draft of a
(03:51):
novel. But when we get to that place
where we're editing, where we're revising,
it gets a little murkier. And that's,
where most of my,
listeners
have those questions. And the story grid is
one of the great places I can point
you to
to, give you a system
to look at a rough draft
and figure out what you need to edit,
(04:12):
what you need to cut, what you need
to revise. So I encourage you to check
check that out. So, alright. Enough of all
that stuff. I'm excited to get into today's
topic. So let's get to it.
My goal today is to change your worldview.
And at first, it's going to sound
like kind of a negative worldview,
but stay with me. I think we'll discover
(04:33):
by the end that it's a worldview that
will not only change the effectiveness
of your writing,
but it might also make you a better
processor or reader of the real world
around you. So today I'm going to try
to convince you that
everything
is an argument.
(05:02):
So back in episode 18, was the one
about rhetorical devices.
We talked a little bit about this concept
of everything being an argument.
In case you haven't listened to that episode
or maybe it's just been a while. Let's
start by quickly reviewing it so,
we have that concept fresh in our minds
as we explore another aspect of it today.
(05:24):
So I'm borrowing the title that I'm working
with here, Everything's an Argument,
from a textbook that I use when I'm
teaching persuasive writing at the college level. Now,
that class is all about academic writing. Right?
Not the kind of writing we typically talk
about here on the podcast
But we're taking some of the elements
from the world of persuasive writing
(05:46):
and bringing them into creative writing to discover
some really important techniques that will strengthen how
you build characters,
how you construct scenes,
and how you bring tension and conflict
into your stories. So here's the basic idea.
Everything around you,
well, at least everything created or manipulated
(06:08):
by humans,
is making an argument
of some sort. And when I say argument
here,
I don't want you to be thinking about
fighting or debating or anything like that. When
we use the word argument today,
we're using a much less aggressive
definition of argument. So an argument for our
(06:28):
purposes is anything that is communicating an idea
or opinion
to other humans.
So argument for us today isn't a fight.
Argument really just means
an attempt to convince someone else to believe
something, anything.
So with this definition of argument in our
heads,
(06:49):
I think it's easier to accept the premise
that everything is an argument.
So think about it, the clothes you're wearing
right now
are an argument.
Whether it was in the front of your
mind or not, you were thinking about how
you want other people to see you
when you chose to put those clothes on
today.
So maybe you wanted people to think you're,
(07:11):
laid back and cool. Right? So you're sporting
maybe a hoodie,
or shorts and sandals or something like that.
Or maybe you wanted others to see you
as a professional person today, so you chose
a suit
of some sort for the day. Even if
you didn't give any thought at all to
what you wore today, you just woke up
and threw something on, I'll bet you did
(07:32):
give it some thought when you bought those
clothes. At least some portion
of your thought process was given to
how others would interpret you, how others would
understand you or read into you when you
wore those clothes.
So in essence, the clothes that you wear
are an argument
(07:52):
attempting to influence others opinions
of who you are as a person.
That's the kind of argument we're talking about
today. Although the fight kind of argument,
you'll see is going to fit in with
this concept, really well as well. So let's
look at a few other examples of things
that aren't usually considered arguments
but clearly are once you look at them
(08:13):
a little more closely just so I'm sure
we have this concept down.
Now I sometimes have students challenge me on
this idea and they'll look out the window
and point to a tree, right? And they'll
say, that tree isn't an argument.
But is that true?
Is that tree somehow an argument?
So if it's a tree that was manipulated
(08:34):
in some way by a human,
meaning it didn't just naturally grow there based
on the laws and kind of randomness of
nature, then yeah, that tree is an argument.
Because somebody somewhere
made all sorts of decisions about that tree.
They thought about what kind of tree would
it be, right? What tree is best here?
(08:55):
Was was that tree chosen for its beauty
or for its shade or,
you know, maybe even for its resources? It's
an apple or a cherry tree.
And why was it placed and planted where
it is? Right? These are all
very,
intentional decisions
that a human made when placing
that tree where it is. And I think
(09:15):
it becomes very clear
that someone placed that tree there
with intention to, at least in part,
influence
how other people either felt about him, right?
The person planting the tree or
maybe the building that it was next to,
or the piece of property that it sat
on.
So in other words, there is still some
(09:38):
element, however small,
of intended
influence.
Even in the tree that you might be
looking at right now.
Here's an example I usually use on the
first day of my classes, just to kinda
throw my students off a little bit. I
bring in a toilet seat, and I introduce
it to the class as a valuable piece
of art.
(09:58):
Now, if you're familiar with Marcel Duchamp's nineteen
seventeen,
piece of ready made art called the fountain,
you might have a better understanding of how
this relates to an English classroom, but maybe
not. Admittedly,
it's a bit of a stretch, even in
class.
But what I'm doing with this toilet seat
is I'm actually introducing it as an example
of how art
(10:19):
serves to
defamiliarize
us with the world we've become familiar with
and have kind of stopped noticing. Now I
talked about this much more in-depth on a
very early podcast on the show, somewhere between
episode five and ten, I think.
So there's this toilet seat that I bring
in. Right? And it serves that purpose of
(10:40):
talking about what art does and how English
or language arts is an art form.
But an element of that,
is the exploration of the intentions
of the people behind even something like
a $5 toilet seat from the Home Depot.
So is a cheap toilet seat an argument?
(11:01):
Well, think about it. Right? Someone designed that
thing.
Someone chose the curve of the edges, the
contours
of the shape. They chose the color. They
chose the
gloss of the paint.
So in other words, at least in part,
it was designed to make an argument.
(11:21):
To influence someone's opinion either of the thing
itself, the toilet seat,
or maybe of the person who buys it
and installs it in their home or in
their business.
So this is what we're talking about when
we say that everything's an argument.
Literally everything that humans manipulate
is in at least some sense
(11:42):
an attempt to influence others to believe
or disbelieve something, or to think in a
certain way about something.
Now I've had a lot of students try
to come up with examples of things that
disprove this theory. And at least so far,
I've been able to discover with them a
way that the thing they thought of is
(12:02):
still a form of argument. But if you
think you've got an example that disproves the
theory, I'd actually love to hear it because
this is something I talk about every year
with my students. You could share it with
us over at the Talk to Us link
on bradreedwrites.com.
It's a great way to get in touch
with us. But even if you do come
up with an exception,
I think we can agree that it still
(12:24):
stands that virtually
everything you see in the world
is someone's argument, someone's attempt
to
influence the way we see either them
or the item that's in the world. And
that's enough of a of a understanding for
us to build on today.
So what difference does any of this make?
(12:44):
Right? When we're sitting down to write a
story, what does it make what difference does
it make that a toilet seat or your
clothes is or a tree
is an argument?
Well the difference is really twofold and we're
gonna explore each one in succession today. So
the first difference it makes
is that we as humans
are
(13:05):
interpreters
of intention. Whether we know it or not.
So I'll get into that more in a
second. The second difference that we'll explore after
that is
that we can use the smallest of details
to powerful effect
when we use them,
intentionally
as part of the arguments that our characters
or our settings
(13:26):
are making.
So let's explore that first aspect, that we
as humans are expert interpreters of intention.
So even if you've never thought about how
everything manipulated by humans can be thought of
as an argument,
that's essentially
the way you've been operating in the world.
So, we are experts
(13:47):
at reading other people's arguments.
So take the job interview for example.
Studies have shown that first impressions are formed
with the, within the first seven seconds
of meeting someone.
I mean, at that point, you haven't even
gotten past the handshake and the hello, my
name is portion of a job interview. Yet,
(14:08):
already you've sized each other up and you've
formed that first impression. So, how does that
work?
What information are we reading in those short
seven seconds?
Well, what we're doing is we're reading each
other's arguments.
So your clothes in a job interview
make an argument, right? We've already talked about
that.
(14:28):
The expression on your face makes an argument.
Are you coming in, with a big smile
on your face, or is it maybe a
serious face, right, that's making an argument?
Like it or not, your weight, right, makes
an argument.
Your hairstyle and your posture,
maybe even the way that you smell, right,
makes an argument if that person is especially
(14:50):
sensitive to that.
So you haven't really even said a word
yet but tons of communication
and inferences and judgments have already happened. Those
arguments are already being read.
And we actually do the same thing with
places, with settings.
So let's say you're in a new city
and you're driving around looking for a place
(15:10):
to eat, a nice restaurant.
And everything around you, every building that you
see, every restaurant is making some kind of
an argument.
So think about what other businesses are surrounding,
the restaurant that you may drive by and
look
at. So if you have a restaurant,
that is next door to a fancy hotel,
that's gonna make a very different argument than
(15:32):
a restaurant that, has a strip club out
back. Right? Even if the two restaurants look
exactly the same otherwise,
their arguments are very different based on those
things. You might look at what kind of
cars are parked out front. So if you've
got a restaurant with a parking lot filled
with luxury cars,
that's a very different argument than, the restaurant
(15:53):
filled with, Harleys. Right?
So how about the sign, right? The sign
that, that has the name of the restaurant
on it. Is it clean? Is it legible?
Is it professional?
Or does it maybe look like it was
put up there fifty years ago and never
thought about again? Right? So all of this,
all of these details
are arguments.
(16:14):
All of this is changing the way you
perceive the place.
And it's happening for the most part subconsciously.
Even if the differences are much, much more
subtle
than the ones I've just used as examples
here.
So it's important to understand
that we are always reading the world this
way. That's just naturally the way we function,
(16:36):
whether we're aware of it or not.
We're always reading
and making inferences about the arguments we see
in the people, the places,
and the things of our world. We can't
help it. I mean, it's how we evolve
to survive, I think.
Read the little clues and interpret, hopefully successfully,
what they mean.
(16:57):
So, now the second part of this important
lesson is that we, as creative
writers can
hijack
this overwhelming
desire
to read the arguments of our world for
use in the stories that we're writing.
And it starts by looking at everything in
your story
as something intentional.
(17:18):
Right? Everything is there
for some purpose of intention.
So your characters don't just wear the clothes
they're wearing because it's the first thing you
thought of when you wrote the draft. Or
at least hopefully that's not the case, right?
They,
just like you, have chosen the clothes they're
wearing
in an effort to get other characters to
think or feel about them
(17:40):
in a certain way.
And your reader, because they're so used to
seeing the world as a series of subtle
arguments,
are going to be reading into what those
characters are wearing for clues
about who that person is, right? What do
they believe in? What are their insecurities?
So dress your characters intentionally.
(18:02):
Put yourself in their shoes with their goals,
their insecurities,
and their budgets. Right? And discover what argument
they should make in the scene you're writing
and how you can do that through the
clothes that they're wearing.
Think about what car they drive.
Right? Is it the just happen to be
the same car that you drive? Right? Or
maybe a car you used to own because
(18:23):
it's easier to describe.
So that's a terrible reason to choose a
car. Or, you know, however your character gets
around a horse or a spaceship or a
dragon for that matter.
What your character chooses to use to get
from place to place says boatloads about who
they are
and,
what their arguments are trying to make,
(18:44):
trying to say about the world around them.
Where do your characters live?
Is the place that they live, does it
grow from their argument?
Right? Think about what vocabulary they use. This
is huge when it comes to argument. Right?
Does the vocabulary, does the word choice that
your characters use
grow from the argument that they're trying to
(19:05):
make about themselves in the world? So a
person who uses and maybe even misuses
big words
is making a very different argument
than someone who just kind
of grunts out
single syllable words, right? So choose each of
these things with intention.
Taking into account who
(19:26):
the character is. And do the same thing
with your settings too.
Make your settings have an argument.
Somebody designed that place, right? Somebody chose
the decoration. Somebody is in charge of the
upkeep or maybe the the lack of upkeep.
And your characters must echo some of that
argument if they've chosen it as a place
(19:47):
to live or a place to meet or
a place to attack, right? Or a place
just to chill out.
So often as writers, we feel like we
have to, hit our readers over the head
with things
to get them to understand the worlds and
the characters that we're writing about. So maybe
we come right out and tell them something
like Dave was the biggest jerk in the
(20:08):
world. Right?
Now, you've just done every single bit of
work for your reader if you've written something
like that.
And readers kind of like to have work
to do. In fact, they don't kind of
like to have work to do. Readers love
to have work to do when they're reading
a book, even if we don't recognize that's
what we're doing.
They like to figure out your story. They
(20:29):
like to piece things together. They like to
make inferences and connections.
I mean, it's how we operate in the
world all the time. We're experts at that.
Or so let's hope you're a better writer
than that and you've learned your show don't
tell lesson and you know that
there's a better way to do it than
just to tell us Dave is a jerk.
Right? You're gonna show it to us. So
(20:51):
instead, you show us by having Dave
walk through the door of his office.
He hits on the young receptionist. He insults
the intern.
And, when he sees his business partner, he
tells him to go fuck himself. Right? So
your reader has to do a little more
work here. You haven't come right out and
said Dave is a jerk. But they don't
(21:11):
have to do much more work. Right? You
might as well have come out and just
told them because you've hit them over the
head with so much
blatant kind of obvious
argument.
But what if you instead talked about the
way Dave always takes up two parking spaces
when he parks his, Hummer
in the crowded parking lot? So something like
(21:31):
that might be just a single sentence in
your story,
but it allows your reader the opportunity
to discover
Dave's argument, to discover what Dave is trying
to get the world to see
about him. And right from that single example,
we kind of can figure out that Dave
thinks he's better and more important than everyone
(21:54):
around him. Right? So we begin to see
his insecurities. We get to see what his
his argument is and we honestly get to
see what a jerk Dave is without coming
right out and telling us.
So your reader has figured it out and
now
they're invested
and they're reading your story world
like they read the real world through those
(22:14):
small little details.
Maybe you have Dave come in and he
doesn't say anything at all when he comes
into the office. Right? And, he leaves his
sunglasses on until he gets behind the desk.
Subtle, right? But what a jerk. If a
guy did that, that guy's a jerk. So
it's subtle, but this guy's sending the message
that he doesn't even see the people around
him or at least doesn't want to.
(22:36):
So now that we can see Dave in
our minds,
what would he wear? Can you picture it?
What would he have,
hanging on the walls of his office? How
would he walk? Right? What kind of posture
would he have? What kind of words would
Dave use with his, underlings?
By the way, that's totally a a Dave
(22:56):
word to use. Right? Underlings?
Dave, man, what a jerk.
So, we read the real world around us
in the details because we know that at
some level,
every detail is there for a reason, especially
in story.
In fact, because they're so subtle, I think
we trust
what the details tell us
(23:17):
far more than we trust what people tell
us. I mean, details don't lie
because they're a part of the real argument
that's going on underneath the surface of what
we say.
So this kind of work of going back
through and putting in these details is a
huge part of revision
for me. This idea of making subtle arguments
(23:38):
of my characters,
settings, and dialogues.
When I'm rough drafting in my first draft,
I don't care so much about this. If
one comes to mind naturally,
it'll go in the story.
You know, a lot of times in my
rough drafts, characters usually drive my car because
it's the first car that comes to mind.
They wear jeans and a t shirt because
who doesn't wear jeans and a t shirt?
(23:59):
And if they go out to eat, they
go out to eat at Applebee's or something,
right? Some boring place. But when I'm revising,
after I've come to really know these places
and these characters,
I know their insecurities,
I know their kind of secret
goals, secret desires,
and I know how they want the world
(24:20):
to see them,
then when I'm revising, everything needs to start
being a part
of that argument.
So this has everything to do with making
your world and your story feel real. Something
we call verisimilitude.
And isn't that what we're always going for
in our fiction, in our writing, is we
(24:40):
want the reader
to have a real
authentic experience in the world that we've created.
So how do we make our stories feel
like real life? How do we get our
readers to engage so deeply
that they get sucked into the worlds and
the stories that we're creating?
The secret to that lies in knowing that
everything
(25:01):
is an argument.
And using that knowledge to your advantage and
finding those
key details that work underneath the surface to
make the arguments of your characters and your
settings.
So one last caveat before we finish up
today.
There's a temptation,
once we understand this concept to
(25:21):
want to throw tons of details into our
story. I mean, it gets kinda fun. Right?
So if one or two compelling details are
good, then five or 10 or or 20
must be better. Right?
So in truth, it's actually the opposite. And
I want you to remember that seven second
rule that we talked about for establishing that
first impression.
(25:43):
Keep that in mind when you're writing as
well.
What you wanna do is come up with
one or two
of the
most effective, most telling,
most compelling details you can.
And then let your readers
fill in the rest of that work. With
a correctly chosen
compelling detail,
your reader can fill in the rest.
(26:05):
We'll we'll actually save our example of this
of, for what I mean of this for
our wise word coming up next.
Today's wise word comes from Stephen King, and
it goes hand in hand with what we're
exploring today. It's a short one. He says
that
an overturned tricycle in the gutter of an
(26:28):
abandoned neighborhood
can stand for everything.
So I want you to picture that scene
in your mind, right? You're in an abandoned
neighborhood and there in the gutter
is an overturned tricycle.
Really feel that moment in your gut.
And what you're doing is you're reading the
argument
(26:48):
of that setting in just those few details,
and feel how the questions
start to come to your mind and how
they begin to reveal an argument
of this scene.
So questions like, how long has that tricycle
been sitting there?
Whose tricycle was that? Why, how did it
end up in the gutter?
(27:08):
I wonder, did somebody just leave it there
on purpose or did they have to get
away quickly for some reason and that's why
it's still there? And what happened to the
kid
that was writing it?
Right? So this this is all happening subconsciously
as we're,
using our natural,
skill
of unpacking the world, of reading the argument
(27:30):
of the world. So we know the tricycle
is there for a reason. Right? The author
put it there. And your mind starts flipping
through the possibilities
trying to make sense of it.
You've done all that work as a reader
and Stephen King just gets to sit back
and let you create
the horror and the suspense of that moment
on your own. What he's doing is he's
(27:51):
tapping into the way that you read into
the details.
And you can do the same thing
with your writing. And notice how much he's
accomplished
with one
well chosen compelling detail.
His reader fills in all the rest of
the detail in their own minds because the
argument of the scene is so strong.
I mean, can't you see that whole neighborhood
(28:13):
now? If you closed your eyes and imagined
it, can't you see it all in your
mind based on that one
little detail? I sure can. Right? In my
mind,
there's the streets are dark. I can see
the shutters hanging
kind of akimbo from the windows.
I can see front doors,
ajar. I mean, I can almost feel the
cold wind
(28:35):
tumbling the trash down the broken streets. Right?
It's all there in my mind based on
that one detail. And maybe it looks different
in your mind. Right? Maybe you took that
detail and made a very different abandoned
neighborhood. And if you did, that's perfect. Right?
That's the trick of engaging a reader.
Stephen King here in that one sentence has
(28:55):
got each one of us building our own
version of his world in our heads. How
the power
of a single
well chosen detail.
And time for our weekly challenge. Our challenge
this week is going to get a little
weird,
(29:16):
and it could even, I guess, technically be
be, illegal in some
states. But this week, I want you to
try to record
a conversation.
Either literally record it on a phone app
or something like that, or at the very
least, write down as much of what is
being said as possible.
Now this could be a conversation between people
(29:37):
you know. Right? Family, friends, workmates,
or it could even be strangers at a
bus stop or in the food court at
a mall. Right? So find a conversation
that you can record.
And what we're doing with this is we're
exploring the thesis of today's show that everything
is an argument.
And I want you to see how it
works in real life so that you can
(29:57):
better
use it in your own writing.
I I actually recommend that you do a
combination of both. Right? Your writing and your
recording if possible. And while you're recording the
conversation, while you're getting the audio, you're writing
down as many details as you can about
the scene, about the
characters. So maybe you're jotting down what the
(30:18):
people are wearing. Right? You're making notes about
how they're standing or sitting. Right? What is
their posture?
Can you capture something about their facial expressions
or their body language? All of this is
argument too.
And once you've done that and, hopefully haven't
gotten yourself arrested for it,
I want you to spend some time with
(30:40):
it, thinking through it, listening to it again
and again.
And figure out what each person is arguing
for.
It might be something very subtle, but it'll
be there even in what sounds like a
friendly kind of off the cuff
conversation.
And it's often what they're arguing for is
not the actual topic of the conversation. You
(31:00):
wanna go deeper than that. Often,
they're going to be arguing things like,
I want you to value my opinion or,
I want you to pay attention to me.
While the other person's argument might be, I'm
too busy to fully listen to what you
have to say, or I've got better things
to do than to talk to you right
now.
So try to go deep with this.
(31:21):
I mean, some of you might actually capture
an argument happening.
If that's the case, make sure you go
deep there, right? What is the subtext
of the argument? What's really going on
under the surface in this relationship?
If you're bold enough to try this, I
think you're gonna have a lot of fun
with it. You might even find that you
wanna do it again a few times because
(31:42):
you're going to learn, something nearly every time
that you do it. In fact, you'll start
to become an expert
on how a
subtle wave of the hand might carry more
weight in the argument
than the words that are actually being spoken.
So give it a try this week. Let
me know what you discover. I'd love to
hear from you. You can go to bradreedrights.com
(32:03):
and click on the talk to us link
to let us know how your weekly challenge
went if you're bold enough to give it
a shot. So,
that's gonna wrap it up for us this
week. If you're enjoying the podcast, I would
love it if you'd tweet about it or
mention it to some of your writer friends
and maybe even leave us a review over
on iTunes or whatever app you use to
listen to podcasts.
It's a great way to help spread the
(32:25):
word and give us the ability to keep
producing these for you. So until next week,
remember the best way to improve your craft
is by writing. That's what I'm off to
go do, and I hope you're off to
do the same. Let's get some words on
paper this week, and we'll meet up again
next week for another episode of the Inside
Creative Writing Podcast.
(32:46):
Thanks for listening to the Inside Creative Writing
Podcast with your host, writer and educator, Brad
Reed.
We'll be back next week.
Welcome to the inside creative writing podcast.
The weekly discussion of craft and technique for
writers of fiction and creative nonfiction.
And now here's your host, writer and educator,
Brad Reed.
Episode 30. Today, we're exploring a technique of
looking at the world from a new perspective
that will result in more engaging writing. I'm
(00:22):
going to try to prove to you that
everything
is an argument.
And welcome back to the Inside Creative Writing
podcast. My name is Brad Reed and I
am so glad that you're spending some time
with me to talk about writing today.
As I'm recording this, it's mid August and
the start of another school year is just
(00:44):
around the corner.
There's always kind of a bittersweet time of
year as those long summer days, full of
plenty of time to write and research and
read and watch great films,
turn into those hectic and grading filled days
of being a high school teacher. I mean,
it's always great to see the kids again
and get back into the classroom. So I'm
(01:04):
looking forward to that. But it's hard to
give up the life of a full time
writer
that, teachers sometimes get to live in the
summer times. And
so this year I'm trying a new experiment.
I'm actually not teaching full time. You see,
I've cut my hours back to make time
to finish the novel I've been working on
since last summer
(01:25):
and devote time to this podcast and the
other resources we've been creating over on our
Patreon page. It's something I'm really excited about
and I'll be sharing a bit of how
that's going
as the, as the year progresses. I'm more
than a little worried about getting that balance
right, between life as a teacher and life
as a writer slash podcaster
(01:47):
but I'm looking forward to the opportunity to
give it a shot.
So I wanted to give you a little
update about the latest book too. I'm getting
close to finishing the process of tearing down
my first draft
and piecing it all back together,
in an order and a sequence that works
better. It's been a lot of work.
And I've been able to cut out a
(02:08):
whole bunch of scenes,
more than I ever thought possible that just
turned out to be not that necessary.
And I feel like I've got a much
better story to tell
for my full,
second draft.
What I thought was going to be
largely just polishing up existing material is going
to end up being
(02:28):
not necessarily a page one rewrite but something
close to that.
There won't be a single sentence that doesn't
get reworked to some extent
as I'm writing the second draft. And that's
really the way I'm thinking of it. It's
not an edit of the first draft. Not
a revision. Not a proofreading.
This is largely
rewriting the story
(02:49):
with scenes and characters and settings that just
plain
work better than they were working in the
first draft.
You know, it's always a daunting task jumping
back into basically
recreate a story that you've already written, but
it is so
worthwhile.
I have no doubt that my final draft
(03:10):
is going to be heads and shoulders above
my rough draft because
of the work I've done tearing it apart
and rebuilding it, putting it back together
to work better.
Now, a lot of this has been done
using the techniques of Sean coin and the
story grid. If you're not familiar with it,
I highly recommend that you check it out.
I'll warn you that it overwhelms
(03:31):
some writers, maybe even most writers, but it
is so worth doing. Or at least some
modification of it that works for you.
Probably the number one question that listeners of
the show have for me is,
how do I revise?
Right? We we learn how to draft. We
kind of understand what it is to sit
down and write the first draft of a
(03:51):
novel. But when we get to that place
where we're editing, where we're revising,
it gets a little murkier. And that's,
where most of my,
listeners
have those questions. And the story grid is
one of the great places I can point
you to
to, give you a system
to look at a rough draft
and figure out what you need to edit,
(04:12):
what you need to cut, what you need
to revise. So I encourage you to check
check that out. So, alright. Enough of all
that stuff. I'm excited to get into today's
topic. So let's get to it.
My goal today is to change your worldview.
And at first, it's going to sound
like kind of a negative worldview,
but stay with me. I think we'll discover
(04:33):
by the end that it's a worldview that
will not only change the effectiveness
of your writing,
but it might also make you a better
processor or reader of the real world
around you. So today I'm going to try
to convince you that
everything
is an argument.
(05:02):
So back in episode 18, was the one
about rhetorical devices.
We talked a little bit about this concept
of everything being an argument.
In case you haven't listened to that episode
or maybe it's just been a while. Let's
start by quickly reviewing it so,
we have that concept fresh in our minds
as we explore another aspect of it today.
(05:24):
So I'm borrowing the title that I'm working
with here, Everything's an Argument,
from a textbook that I use when I'm
teaching persuasive writing at the college level. Now,
that class is all about academic writing. Right?
Not the kind of writing we typically talk
about here on the podcast
But we're taking some of the elements
from the world of persuasive writing
(05:46):
and bringing them into creative writing to discover
some really important techniques that will strengthen how
you build characters,
how you construct scenes,
and how you bring tension and conflict
into your stories. So here's the basic idea.
Everything around you,
well, at least everything created or manipulated
(06:08):
by humans,
is making an argument
of some sort. And when I say argument
here,
I don't want you to be thinking about
fighting or debating or anything like that. When
we use the word argument today,
we're using a much less aggressive
definition of argument. So an argument for our
(06:28):
purposes is anything that is communicating an idea
or opinion
to other humans.
So argument for us today isn't a fight.
Argument really just means
an attempt to convince someone else to believe
something, anything.
So with this definition of argument in our
heads,
(06:49):
I think it's easier to accept the premise
that everything is an argument.
So think about it, the clothes you're wearing
right now
are an argument.
Whether it was in the front of your
mind or not, you were thinking about how
you want other people to see you
when you chose to put those clothes on
today.
So maybe you wanted people to think you're,
(07:11):
laid back and cool. Right? So you're sporting
maybe a hoodie,
or shorts and sandals or something like that.
Or maybe you wanted others to see you
as a professional person today, so you chose
a suit
of some sort for the day. Even if
you didn't give any thought at all to
what you wore today, you just woke up
and threw something on, I'll bet you did
(07:32):
give it some thought when you bought those
clothes. At least some portion
of your thought process was given to
how others would interpret you, how others would
understand you or read into you when you
wore those clothes.
So in essence, the clothes that you wear
are an argument
(07:52):
attempting to influence others opinions
of who you are as a person.
That's the kind of argument we're talking about
today. Although the fight kind of argument,
you'll see is going to fit in with
this concept, really well as well. So let's
look at a few other examples of things
that aren't usually considered arguments
but clearly are once you look at them
(08:13):
a little more closely just so I'm sure
we have this concept down.
Now I sometimes have students challenge me on
this idea and they'll look out the window
and point to a tree, right? And they'll
say, that tree isn't an argument.
But is that true?
Is that tree somehow an argument?
So if it's a tree that was manipulated
(08:34):
in some way by a human,
meaning it didn't just naturally grow there based
on the laws and kind of randomness of
nature, then yeah, that tree is an argument.
Because somebody somewhere
made all sorts of decisions about that tree.
They thought about what kind of tree would
it be, right? What tree is best here?
(08:55):
Was was that tree chosen for its beauty
or for its shade or,
you know, maybe even for its resources? It's
an apple or a cherry tree.
And why was it placed and planted where
it is? Right? These are all
very,
intentional decisions
that a human made when placing
that tree where it is. And I think
(09:15):
it becomes very clear
that someone placed that tree there
with intention to, at least in part,
influence
how other people either felt about him, right?
The person planting the tree or
maybe the building that it was next to,
or the piece of property that it sat
on.
So in other words, there is still some
(09:38):
element, however small,
of intended
influence.
Even in the tree that you might be
looking at right now.
Here's an example I usually use on the
first day of my classes, just to kinda
throw my students off a little bit. I
bring in a toilet seat, and I introduce
it to the class as a valuable piece
of art.
(09:58):
Now, if you're familiar with Marcel Duchamp's nineteen
seventeen,
piece of ready made art called the fountain,
you might have a better understanding of how
this relates to an English classroom, but maybe
not. Admittedly,
it's a bit of a stretch, even in
class.
But what I'm doing with this toilet seat
is I'm actually introducing it as an example
of how art
(10:19):
serves to
defamiliarize
us with the world we've become familiar with
and have kind of stopped noticing. Now I
talked about this much more in-depth on a
very early podcast on the show, somewhere between
episode five and ten, I think.
So there's this toilet seat that I bring
in. Right? And it serves that purpose of
(10:40):
talking about what art does and how English
or language arts is an art form.
But an element of that,
is the exploration of the intentions
of the people behind even something like
a $5 toilet seat from the Home Depot.
So is a cheap toilet seat an argument?
(11:01):
Well, think about it. Right? Someone designed that
thing.
Someone chose the curve of the edges, the
contours
of the shape. They chose the color. They
chose the
gloss of the paint.
So in other words, at least in part,
it was designed to make an argument.
(11:21):
To influence someone's opinion either of the thing
itself, the toilet seat,
or maybe of the person who buys it
and installs it in their home or in
their business.
So this is what we're talking about when
we say that everything's an argument.
Literally everything that humans manipulate
is in at least some sense
(11:42):
an attempt to influence others to believe
or disbelieve something, or to think in a
certain way about something.
Now I've had a lot of students try
to come up with examples of things that
disprove this theory. And at least so far,
I've been able to discover with them a
way that the thing they thought of is
(12:02):
still a form of argument. But if you
think you've got an example that disproves the
theory, I'd actually love to hear it because
this is something I talk about every year
with my students. You could share it with
us over at the Talk to Us link
on bradreedwrites.com.
It's a great way to get in touch
with us. But even if you do come
up with an exception,
I think we can agree that it still
(12:24):
stands that virtually
everything you see in the world
is someone's argument, someone's attempt
to
influence the way we see either them
or the item that's in the world. And
that's enough of a of a understanding for
us to build on today.
So what difference does any of this make?
(12:44):
Right? When we're sitting down to write a
story, what does it make what difference does
it make that a toilet seat or your
clothes is or a tree
is an argument?
Well the difference is really twofold and we're
gonna explore each one in succession today. So
the first difference it makes
is that we as humans
are
(13:05):
interpreters
of intention. Whether we know it or not.
So I'll get into that more in a
second. The second difference that we'll explore after
that is
that we can use the smallest of details
to powerful effect
when we use them,
intentionally
as part of the arguments that our characters
or our settings
(13:26):
are making.
So let's explore that first aspect, that we
as humans are expert interpreters of intention.
So even if you've never thought about how
everything manipulated by humans can be thought of
as an argument,
that's essentially
the way you've been operating in the world.
So, we are experts
(13:47):
at reading other people's arguments.
So take the job interview for example.
Studies have shown that first impressions are formed
with the, within the first seven seconds
of meeting someone.
I mean, at that point, you haven't even
gotten past the handshake and the hello, my
name is portion of a job interview. Yet,
(14:08):
already you've sized each other up and you've
formed that first impression. So, how does that
work?
What information are we reading in those short
seven seconds?
Well, what we're doing is we're reading each
other's arguments.
So your clothes in a job interview
make an argument, right? We've already talked about
that.
(14:28):
The expression on your face makes an argument.
Are you coming in, with a big smile
on your face, or is it maybe a
serious face, right, that's making an argument?
Like it or not, your weight, right, makes
an argument.
Your hairstyle and your posture,
maybe even the way that you smell, right,
makes an argument if that person is especially
(14:50):
sensitive to that.
So you haven't really even said a word
yet but tons of communication
and inferences and judgments have already happened. Those
arguments are already being read.
And we actually do the same thing with
places, with settings.
So let's say you're in a new city
and you're driving around looking for a place
(15:10):
to eat, a nice restaurant.
And everything around you, every building that you
see, every restaurant is making some kind of
an argument.
So think about what other businesses are surrounding,
the restaurant that you may drive by and
look
at. So if you have a restaurant,
that is next door to a fancy hotel,
that's gonna make a very different argument than
(15:32):
a restaurant that, has a strip club out
back. Right? Even if the two restaurants look
exactly the same otherwise,
their arguments are very different based on those
things. You might look at what kind of
cars are parked out front. So if you've
got a restaurant with a parking lot filled
with luxury cars,
that's a very different argument than, the restaurant
(15:53):
filled with, Harleys. Right?
So how about the sign, right? The sign
that, that has the name of the restaurant
on it. Is it clean? Is it legible?
Is it professional?
Or does it maybe look like it was
put up there fifty years ago and never
thought about again? Right? So all of this,
all of these details
are arguments.
(16:14):
All of this is changing the way you
perceive the place.
And it's happening for the most part subconsciously.
Even if the differences are much, much more
subtle
than the ones I've just used as examples
here.
So it's important to understand
that we are always reading the world this
way. That's just naturally the way we function,
(16:36):
whether we're aware of it or not.
We're always reading
and making inferences about the arguments we see
in the people, the places,
and the things of our world. We can't
help it. I mean, it's how we evolve
to survive, I think.
Read the little clues and interpret, hopefully successfully,
what they mean.
(16:57):
So, now the second part of this important
lesson is that we, as creative
writers can
hijack
this overwhelming
desire
to read the arguments of our world for
use in the stories that we're writing.
And it starts by looking at everything in
your story
as something intentional.
(17:18):
Right? Everything is there
for some purpose of intention.
So your characters don't just wear the clothes
they're wearing because it's the first thing you
thought of when you wrote the draft. Or
at least hopefully that's not the case, right?
They,
just like you, have chosen the clothes they're
wearing
in an effort to get other characters to
think or feel about them
(17:40):
in a certain way.
And your reader, because they're so used to
seeing the world as a series of subtle
arguments,
are going to be reading into what those
characters are wearing for clues
about who that person is, right? What do
they believe in? What are their insecurities?
So dress your characters intentionally.
(18:02):
Put yourself in their shoes with their goals,
their insecurities,
and their budgets. Right? And discover what argument
they should make in the scene you're writing
and how you can do that through the
clothes that they're wearing.
Think about what car they drive.
Right? Is it the just happen to be
the same car that you drive? Right? Or
maybe a car you used to own because
(18:23):
it's easier to describe.
So that's a terrible reason to choose a
car. Or, you know, however your character gets
around a horse or a spaceship or a
dragon for that matter.
What your character chooses to use to get
from place to place says boatloads about who
they are
and,
what their arguments are trying to make,
(18:44):
trying to say about the world around them.
Where do your characters live?
Is the place that they live, does it
grow from their argument?
Right? Think about what vocabulary they use. This
is huge when it comes to argument. Right?
Does the vocabulary, does the word choice that
your characters use
grow from the argument that they're trying to
(19:05):
make about themselves in the world? So a
person who uses and maybe even misuses
big words
is making a very different argument
than someone who just kind
of grunts out
single syllable words, right? So choose each of
these things with intention.
Taking into account who
(19:26):
the character is. And do the same thing
with your settings too.
Make your settings have an argument.
Somebody designed that place, right? Somebody chose
the decoration. Somebody is in charge of the
upkeep or maybe the the lack of upkeep.
And your characters must echo some of that
argument if they've chosen it as a place
(19:47):
to live or a place to meet or
a place to attack, right? Or a place
just to chill out.
So often as writers, we feel like we
have to, hit our readers over the head
with things
to get them to understand the worlds and
the characters that we're writing about. So maybe
we come right out and tell them something
like Dave was the biggest jerk in the
(20:08):
world. Right?
Now, you've just done every single bit of
work for your reader if you've written something
like that.
And readers kind of like to have work
to do. In fact, they don't kind of
like to have work to do. Readers love
to have work to do when they're reading
a book, even if we don't recognize that's
what we're doing.
They like to figure out your story. They
(20:29):
like to piece things together. They like to
make inferences and connections.
I mean, it's how we operate in the
world all the time. We're experts at that.
Or so let's hope you're a better writer
than that and you've learned your show don't
tell lesson and you know that
there's a better way to do it than
just to tell us Dave is a jerk.
Right? You're gonna show it to us. So
(20:51):
instead, you show us by having Dave
walk through the door of his office.
He hits on the young receptionist. He insults
the intern.
And, when he sees his business partner, he
tells him to go fuck himself. Right? So
your reader has to do a little more
work here. You haven't come right out and
said Dave is a jerk. But they don't
(21:11):
have to do much more work. Right? You
might as well have come out and just
told them because you've hit them over the
head with so much
blatant kind of obvious
argument.
But what if you instead talked about the
way Dave always takes up two parking spaces
when he parks his, Hummer
in the crowded parking lot? So something like
(21:31):
that might be just a single sentence in
your story,
but it allows your reader the opportunity
to discover
Dave's argument, to discover what Dave is trying
to get the world to see
about him. And right from that single example,
we kind of can figure out that Dave
thinks he's better and more important than everyone
(21:54):
around him. Right? So we begin to see
his insecurities. We get to see what his
his argument is and we honestly get to
see what a jerk Dave is without coming
right out and telling us.
So your reader has figured it out and
now
they're invested
and they're reading your story world
like they read the real world through those
(22:14):
small little details.
Maybe you have Dave come in and he
doesn't say anything at all when he comes
into the office. Right? And, he leaves his
sunglasses on until he gets behind the desk.
Subtle, right? But what a jerk. If a
guy did that, that guy's a jerk. So
it's subtle, but this guy's sending the message
that he doesn't even see the people around
him or at least doesn't want to.
(22:36):
So now that we can see Dave in
our minds,
what would he wear? Can you picture it?
What would he have,
hanging on the walls of his office? How
would he walk? Right? What kind of posture
would he have? What kind of words would
Dave use with his, underlings?
By the way, that's totally a a Dave
(22:56):
word to use. Right? Underlings?
Dave, man, what a jerk.
So, we read the real world around us
in the details because we know that at
some level,
every detail is there for a reason, especially
in story.
In fact, because they're so subtle, I think
we trust
what the details tell us
(23:17):
far more than we trust what people tell
us. I mean, details don't lie
because they're a part of the real argument
that's going on underneath the surface of what
we say.
So this kind of work of going back
through and putting in these details is a
huge part of revision
for me. This idea of making subtle arguments
(23:38):
of my characters,
settings, and dialogues.
When I'm rough drafting in my first draft,
I don't care so much about this. If
one comes to mind naturally,
it'll go in the story.
You know, a lot of times in my
rough drafts, characters usually drive my car because
it's the first car that comes to mind.
They wear jeans and a t shirt because
who doesn't wear jeans and a t shirt?
(23:59):
And if they go out to eat, they
go out to eat at Applebee's or something,
right? Some boring place. But when I'm revising,
after I've come to really know these places
and these characters,
I know their insecurities,
I know their kind of secret
goals, secret desires,
and I know how they want the world
(24:20):
to see them,
then when I'm revising, everything needs to start
being a part
of that argument.
So this has everything to do with making
your world and your story feel real. Something
we call verisimilitude.
And isn't that what we're always going for
in our fiction, in our writing, is we
(24:40):
want the reader
to have a real
authentic experience in the world that we've created.
So how do we make our stories feel
like real life? How do we get our
readers to engage so deeply
that they get sucked into the worlds and
the stories that we're creating?
The secret to that lies in knowing that
everything
(25:01):
is an argument.
And using that knowledge to your advantage and
finding those
key details that work underneath the surface to
make the arguments of your characters and your
settings.
So one last caveat before we finish up
today.
There's a temptation,
once we understand this concept to
(25:21):
want to throw tons of details into our
story. I mean, it gets kinda fun. Right?
So if one or two compelling details are
good, then five or 10 or or 20
must be better. Right?
So in truth, it's actually the opposite. And
I want you to remember that seven second
rule that we talked about for establishing that
first impression.
(25:43):
Keep that in mind when you're writing as
well.
What you wanna do is come up with
one or two
of the
most effective, most telling,
most compelling details you can.
And then let your readers
fill in the rest of that work. With
a correctly chosen
compelling detail,
your reader can fill in the rest.
(26:05):
We'll we'll actually save our example of this
of, for what I mean of this for
our wise word coming up next.
Today's wise word comes from Stephen King, and
it goes hand in hand with what we're
exploring today. It's a short one. He says
that
an overturned tricycle in the gutter of an
(26:28):
abandoned neighborhood
can stand for everything.
So I want you to picture that scene
in your mind, right? You're in an abandoned
neighborhood and there in the gutter
is an overturned tricycle.
Really feel that moment in your gut.
And what you're doing is you're reading the
argument
(26:48):
of that setting in just those few details,
and feel how the questions
start to come to your mind and how
they begin to reveal an argument
of this scene.
So questions like, how long has that tricycle
been sitting there?
Whose tricycle was that? Why, how did it
end up in the gutter?
(27:08):
I wonder, did somebody just leave it there
on purpose or did they have to get
away quickly for some reason and that's why
it's still there? And what happened to the
kid
that was writing it?
Right? So this this is all happening subconsciously
as we're,
using our natural,
skill
of unpacking the world, of reading the argument
(27:30):
of the world. So we know the tricycle
is there for a reason. Right? The author
put it there. And your mind starts flipping
through the possibilities
trying to make sense of it.
You've done all that work as a reader
and Stephen King just gets to sit back
and let you create
the horror and the suspense of that moment
on your own. What he's doing is he's
(27:51):
tapping into the way that you read into
the details.
And you can do the same thing
with your writing. And notice how much he's
accomplished
with one
well chosen compelling detail.
His reader fills in all the rest of
the detail in their own minds because the
argument of the scene is so strong.
I mean, can't you see that whole neighborhood
(28:13):
now? If you closed your eyes and imagined
it, can't you see it all in your
mind based on that one
little detail? I sure can. Right? In my
mind,
there's the streets are dark. I can see
the shutters hanging
kind of akimbo from the windows.
I can see front doors,
ajar. I mean, I can almost feel the
cold wind
(28:35):
tumbling the trash down the broken streets. Right?
It's all there in my mind based on
that one detail. And maybe it looks different
in your mind. Right? Maybe you took that
detail and made a very different abandoned
neighborhood. And if you did, that's perfect. Right?
That's the trick of engaging a reader.
Stephen King here in that one sentence has
(28:55):
got each one of us building our own
version of his world in our heads. How
the power
of a single
well chosen detail.
And time for our weekly challenge. Our challenge
this week is going to get a little
weird,
(29:16):
and it could even, I guess, technically be
be, illegal in some
states. But this week, I want you to
try to record
a conversation.
Either literally record it on a phone app
or something like that, or at the very
least, write down as much of what is
being said as possible.
Now this could be a conversation between people
(29:37):
you know. Right? Family, friends, workmates,
or it could even be strangers at a
bus stop or in the food court at
a mall. Right? So find a conversation
that you can record.
And what we're doing with this is we're
exploring the thesis of today's show that everything
is an argument.
And I want you to see how it
works in real life so that you can
(29:57):
better
use it in your own writing.
I I actually recommend that you do a
combination of both. Right? Your writing and your
recording if possible. And while you're recording the
conversation, while you're getting the audio, you're writing
down as many details as you can about
the scene, about the
characters. So maybe you're jotting down what the
(30:18):
people are wearing. Right? You're making notes about
how they're standing or sitting. Right? What is
their posture?
Can you capture something about their facial expressions
or their body language? All of this is
argument too.
And once you've done that and, hopefully haven't
gotten yourself arrested for it,
I want you to spend some time with
(30:40):
it, thinking through it, listening to it again
and again.
And figure out what each person is arguing
for.
It might be something very subtle, but it'll
be there even in what sounds like a
friendly kind of off the cuff
conversation.
And it's often what they're arguing for is
not the actual topic of the conversation. You
(31:00):
wanna go deeper than that. Often,
they're going to be arguing things like,
I want you to value my opinion or,
I want you to pay attention to me.
While the other person's argument might be, I'm
too busy to fully listen to what you
have to say, or I've got better things
to do than to talk to you right
now.
So try to go deep with this.
(31:21):
I mean, some of you might actually capture
an argument happening.
If that's the case, make sure you go
deep there, right? What is the subtext
of the argument? What's really going on
under the surface in this relationship?
If you're bold enough to try this, I
think you're gonna have a lot of fun
with it. You might even find that you
wanna do it again a few times because
(31:42):
you're going to learn, something nearly every time
that you do it. In fact, you'll start
to become an expert
on how a
subtle wave of the hand might carry more
weight in the argument
than the words that are actually being spoken.
So give it a try this week. Let
me know what you discover. I'd love to
hear from you. You can go to bradreedrights.com
(32:03):
and click on the talk to us link
to let us know how your weekly challenge
went if you're bold enough to give it
a shot. So,
that's gonna wrap it up for us this
week. If you're enjoying the podcast, I would
love it if you'd tweet about it or
mention it to some of your writer friends
and maybe even leave us a review over
on iTunes or whatever app you use to
listen to podcasts.
It's a great way to help spread the
(32:25):
word and give us the ability to keep
producing these for you. So until next week,
remember the best way to improve your craft
is by writing. That's what I'm off to
go do, and I hope you're off to
do the same. Let's get some words on
paper this week, and we'll meet up again
next week for another episode of the Inside
Creative Writing Podcast.
(32:46):
Thanks for listening to the Inside Creative Writing
Podcast with your host, writer and educator, Brad
Reed.
We'll be back next week.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.