The One-Drink Book Club is an informal, (almost) weekly series in which fellow author Emma Lee Jayne joins me and our other creative friends to talk about the life, business, and art of writing and making books … for the duration of one Friday-afternoon drink.
Here’s what we talked about in this episode:
We began with a rousing discussion of writing techniques that annoy Bill, several of which I’ve definitely done. We then espoused our own annoyances, which made us all look like judgmental fuckers. Like: Excessive cliffhangers, too many short chapters, shocking openings, dialogue that would never make sense in the real world, too many adverbs, and the ever-popular practice of head-hopping.
We then pivoted to what sounds like a super geeky discussion but was actually sort of fascinating: the strengths and value of various point-of-view/tense styles. Which style do you like best, and why?
I told my famous “em dash” story. Which wasn’t actually famous at all.
Emma then asked everyone a question about selling content that she’s also using for a lead magnet to get people onto her email list. Is a bonus story worth 99 cents? (HINT: I said yes. It’s 99 fucking cents, people.)
We then spent the final three of the show with a rousing and sort of profound and existential discussion about whether or not genre writing is noble - whether we’ll be remembered after we’re gone as having made a difference. What do you think — is only Literature-with-a-capital-L helping to change the world? Or is it instead pretentious bullshit and we, the genre writers, are this world’s real heroes?
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