130: Propaganda – How We Steal Writing Tricks from Other Authors (feat. Sandwich)

This week we got deep into writing nerd territory, swapping stories about the books that shape our craft—Slaughterhouse‑Five, Catch‑22, and one Nabokov short story WebEater dissected like he was an eager fifth grader who'd just been handed his first owl pellet. We talked about borrowing and adapting structure from other authors, the little lies we tell ourselves to keep writing, and that weird optimism/pessimism dance that happens whenever Vonnegut comes up. And also, cat anuses *.Then we read first‑draft stories inspired by Propaganda, featuring a secret East German book smuggler, a fantasy bureaucracy obsessed with sacred flames, and a hilariously depressing mini‑monster‑truck rally.Happy writing everyone! Stories start around 19 minutes in.Like this weeks episode and wish you could read as well as listen? Subscribe to our Substack for a summary of our opening discussion, a story from the episode, and a writing prompt!  Be sure to follow us on Instagram (if that's your sort of thing). Please do send us an email with your story if you write along, which we hope you will do. Episodes of Radio FreeWrite are protected by a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. All Stories remain the property of their respective authors.