Spark Series Webcast: A Masterclass with Best-Selling Author Adam Ross

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's live webcast with Achieve Engagement. My name is Zach Dahms, president of Achieve Engagement, and as your community lead, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day and your busy schedules to come together as a network, come together as peers, and sharpen our crafts in building a better world of work. That's really what our network is all about. If this is your first time with us, our community is here to elevate the leaders within the world of work so that you can elevate the workplaces that you are serving. And that's really what we do. We bring together different thought leaders, researchers, practitioners. We turn culture, employee experience, and talent into a system where engagement and performance can thrive together. So, that's some of the stuff that we're hoping to learn and unlock today. I'm really excited about today's program, but before I jump into that, if you haven't already, would love to see some of the stuff that you're working on and where you're calling in from. Put that in the chat if you haven't already. I see we got someone from Seattle. We got Pittsburgh. I'm in Denver right now. Would love to see where someone else, uh, some more of you are calling in from. Uh, and I would also love to hear, what is, like, one of the key goals or things that you're working on right now that made you really energized to join today's session? I think for me, I'm really excited about the topic around the ultimate story framework, and how can we unlock storytelling, communications, and just the way that we're, we're communicating things so that it's driving real engagement across culture, that it's enhancing our communication, that it's supporting the changes that we're navigating? Uh, I think so often sometimes the, the changes that are happening within our environment or within our cultures, it, depending on like how the narrative forms can really drive if we're having engaging and energizing experience with it, or if we're kind of allowing people to create their own narratives behind it. So, I'm really excited to jump into that with some of you today around, you know, what is some of the messaging that can move people and what are some of the messaging that makes things fall flat? And that probably a lot of you are probably generating some strategic plans and big moves for next year, and this is often a piece that we kind of leave out of the strategic planning is like, okay, what's the narrative framing? What's the storytelling component to the initiatives that we're trying to move into for next year? So, I would also kind of think through, what does that mean for you? Um, Betsy, I appreciate you kind of adding in the chat as well. Let's see. "Training. I'm looking for a story to connect the different lessons." Ooh, I love that. Wendy, "Engaging the team, keeping them motivated and engaged." All right, you're in the right place. (laughs) Let's see, what else? "We're not immune to all the tough things happening in the public media right now, so I'm working on oriented our, annual all-staff training around resilience and navigating the culture, the change well." All right, you're in a good place for this, right? It's like so much noise happening at a societal level, so how do we combat the narratives and all the stories that are coming into the workplace and be more intentional about that? So, what is that story framework? So, that being said, let's welcome two amazing leaders to the Achieve Engagement stage with us today. We're very lucky to have these two leaders with us. First, we have Adam Ross, author and editor, uh, also, uh, here to sh- talk through some of these storytelling frameworks. And then we're also very lucky to have Jody Odiorne, founder of BrandAmics, also one of the original founders of Achieve Engagement as well, so just, uh, grateful to have her back on the stage with us today. So that being said, Adam, Jody, welcome. Let me stop sharing. It's great to see you, both of your lovely faces, and really appreciate you both doing this with our network. And Jody, I think I'll, I'll pass it over to you to kick us off. Thank you, Zach. Great intro, as always. Well, it just gives me wonderful pleasure to bring Adam Ross to our stage today. Adam, a million thanks, my favorite man of letters. Uh, love to know in the chat, anybody familiar with Adam's writings, either Sewanee Review, Mr. Peanut, or most recently, the one that rocked my world, Playworld. And, uh, have it right here. Uh, Adam's writing brings together character, plot, as well as the larger context of time, place, geography, everything, everything that really made it s- just arresting to me. That's why I wanted him here to help us all think differently about the way in which we communicate to our audiences through the lens of the way people connect. So Adam, thank you so, so much for being here. If you wanna just share a little bit about your journey as a writer, how you found your voice, your brilliant storytelling, I'm sure we'd love to hear that journey. Sure. Um, gosh, it's always, it's always funny when you get asked these questions. It's like, how far back to go? But, um, in a way, I'll, I'll kind of go back to the beginning in the sense that, you know, uh, m- what Playworld is about is sort of bound up with all this, 'cause Playworld is about the year in the life of a child actor in 1980, 1981. I was also, um, a child actor. I was a child actor, um, from the age of about to 16. I was a kid who, in my early years, was really interested in, more in like comic books and science fiction than I was in literature, but I was also growing up around a performing arts family. My father was an actor, uh, and a voiceover guy, and my mother was a ballerina. And so... You know, not only were these people- w- w- w- were these two people, uh, people who were in the business of- of- of literally telling stories either with their bodies, with dance, with my mom, or- or- or- or in the performing arts like my father, but because I was an actor, you know, I grew up around all these amazing professional actors. And the thing about professional actors, if you ever get the pleasure of hanging out with them, is generally speaking, actors are, like, great raconteurs. Like they're- they're great storytellers. And so even in my earliest youth, like, I was around these people who could command an audience. Uh, and it's- it- and it is- it is a very... I mean, you sort of get a taste of it watching talk shows when you see, like, really good talk shows and- and really good guests. But, you know, I- so I grew up around that and I was just- I was just so- always so taken with that- that power. And then, you know, by the time- by the time I got to college, I was already interested in actual, like, literal storytelling. I was starting to write. And then when I got to college I caught the- I caught the literature bug. I was at Vassar College and I caught it really hard, and I left Vassar, you know, determined to become a writer. And- and this to me is actually a really interesting part of the story because I spent two years in New York working sort of various odd jobs, writing, writing, writing, reading, reading, reading. I got into grad school, I went and got an MA and an MFA in creative writing at Hollins College and WashU respectively, and I came out of there, you know, relatively young. I was, like, in my mid to late 20s and I hadn't really published anything, and then I sort of had to go and relearn how to become, I think, in some ways, like a real writer. And so I spent, like, the next to years working on what would become my first two books, Mr. Peanut and Ladies and Gentlemen, and I think one of the things I hope we swing back to in this discussion, because Play World, my current novel which has been fortunate to get such great, um, critical press, um, these were- these were projects that took me a really long time. And so you have to believe in your story for a really long time, and that is something that I think the culture... it's not- it's not- it's not necessarily that our culture doesn't value that, but I think our culture is learning l- is losing the ability to trust in a story for a very long time and- and have faith in a story over a period of time. So, you know, I spent- you know, I spent the next, like, going back to where I left off, I spent the next, like, 10, years working on these two manuscripts, and in the meantime I was a journalist, um, I was a teacher, I was a freelance editor. Um, and- and then I had, like, one of those, kind of like miraculous experiences where, um, uh, you know, right off the jump I got an agent, showed it to a major editor and, you know, S- the legendary Sunny Mehta at Knopf and Gary Fisketjon, who is like Cormac McCarthy's editor, and Richard Ford and Richard Russo and, you know, uh, Joy Williams, like, took it off the table and made a preemptive offer, and then, uh, my first novel, Mr. Peanut, was, uh, on the cover of The New York Times Book Review and then sold in countries, and so, like, my life completely changed, but it really was a lesson in believing in your story, in really believing in your story and believing- believing in- i- in- in your story over a long period of time, because when you work on something for a really long period of time, uh, you go through this- you go through this sort of period of doubt where you're like, "I'm sort of bored with this. Not- not- not that I'm bored with what I'm writing right now, but, like, I've read the stuff that I wrote, like, one, two, three, five years ago and I'm not excited about it. I'm excited about the stuff, the new stuff," but you have to trust that the stuff was exciting to you at a certain period of time, and it turns out it is, um, if- if you're, you know, if- if you're- if you're doing your job right, um, but it really is an act of faith and it's an act of, like, of working faith. Very interesting. So I want to just compare a 10-year novel to be born with the people on the call that are fighting for attention in an inbox and there is a limit to how many revisions and how much time you have. How do you balance the revisions and whether or not they are w- uh, the juice is worth the squeeze, if you will? Like- That's a great question. Um, you know, uh, there is, um... I'm- I'm sure so many people in your audience have heard the- the, you know, the great expression, you know, "Perfect is the enemy of the good." And, um, you know, what you sort of... I think one of the things you have to learn to trust, which is, and this- this- this is gonna sound, like, paradoxical, but, like, you- you have to really trust whatever the first impetus, whatever the first inspiration was behind, you know, the thing you're trying to convey, and really understanding that past a certain point, you run the risk of- uh, of over- over-burnishing, you know, the diamond as it were, like- like- like- like- like, shining it up too much and- and- and getting away from what the initial impetus was. And so- and so to me- to me, it's really striking a balance between, um... There's that- there's that moment- there's that moment, Jody, where it's like- where it's like-... when your revisions or changes, uh, threaten to, uh, turn the thing that initially forced you to convey the message into something entirely different. You know, you have to, you have to really trust what the, the, the first communication is and how to make that as effective as possible. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And like I say and continue to say, Playworld just, it stopped me in my tracks. And that's hard to do, right? 'Cause I'm working, I'm tired, I'm doing everything and it just stopped me. And now, I'm trying to figure out what that is that makes something so powerful that it stops people and whether you can turn that into something that's going to be around open enrollment or mandatory compliance and training or other things that people are grappling with at work to say, "Hey, stop what you're doing. Stop your work. This is an email or other form of communication, this is im- but this is important." Well, in, insofar as I think we're actually talking about the same thing, you kn- you know, um, there is, uh... W- I, I think one of the most important things about effective communication and, and, and when I mean effective communication, I'm talking about, um, effective communication, uh, in a novel which is, which is trying to tell a story about made-up people. You're not going to, you're not going to invest yourself in that story unless the readers recognize their, um, their affinity, their similarity to the particular characters. Even if it's a, even if it's a man, even if it's a male narrator telling about a, a young boy or if it's a woman narrator, d- you know, to, to, to a, to a male reader, you know what I mean? There has to be that way in which you really seize on the, the, the, the, the thing... It's almost like, I think a wh- uh, uh, uh, the way in which wha- what a really good piece of fiction is doing is it feels like essential need-to-know information. Essential need-to-know information. And so, you know, it's so funny, like, um, oftentimes in my, in my position at the Sewanee Review, um, we get these letters from publishers about things that are coming out soon and, um, you know, like, "Oh, you know, you must read this book about blah, blah, blah." And, um, a lot of those you end up just ignoring because there's a failure on the part of the person writing the communication to really grab you in, in such a way that, that really, uh, immediately gives you an idea of why this is important. And, and so this goes to, this goes to storytelling. So, so I'll tell you... I, I, I like to s- tell y- tell this story and I may have told this story to you, Jody, when we met. Jody and I had like the, the pleasure of meeting in person, um, last summer. Um, so, uh, I sold the original, uh... Oh, I sold Playworld to Knopf based on a partial about this main character, um, and I sold pages to Knopf, um, of this novel I was gonna write about Griffin, the main character, at the age of 33. And I envisioned it to be a novel that was gonna have three acts, right? And, uh, um, uh, you know, I'd basically written act one and I get the book deal and they give me my check and now I'm spending my money. And, um, I sit down to write act two and it's just not going anywhere. It's like, it's like the novel is suddenly stuck. And I was stuck for like a year. And then I went and had a conversation with somebody about it and I was like, "Oh my god. You know, the novel isn't going anywhere. I feel like I'm stuck." And the person said, "Well, tell me about it." And so I told him a little about it, blah, blah, blah, about this crazy wrestling coach and this, this relationship this kid is having with this older woman, blah, blah, blah. And I said, "But you know what the thing about it was? You know, as a child actor, I was like, 'It didn't seem strange at the time.'" And the person says to me, "That's an incredible line." And so I went home and wrote the prologue in a single sitting and the first line of the novel is, "In the fall of when I was 14, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shaw fell in love with me. She was 36, a mother of two and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn't seem strange at the time." Why am I saying all this? I'm saying all this because if you can communicate in a way that immediately grabs hold of your audience and, and engages them, then, you know, in, in, in, in the novelist's world, I feel like you buy a solid pages of goodwill that the reader is gonna like keep reading and let's... and go along with you while they, you know, decide whether they're gonna read your book or not. And I think similarly in terms of like w- what you're talking about, it's really so important that, uh, you almost look at your communication as if you were the... on the receiving end and understand that unless this, unless this communication indicates to the reader, th- th- your audience why this is important, why this is essential information, then you, you, you, you run the risk of inattention. I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I'm just so thrilled to hear you say that and relive the first sentence because there is that not only goodwill but that cascade. And to the people listening on the phone, it's that first sentence that drew me in and where it drew me to was obviously falling in love with the novel and then secondarily falling in love with the first novel, Mr. Peanut, and then somehow Adam wound up on my Instagram feed with my kids. So now I see what they were all as Halloween and there's Adam (laughs) doing his thing and that's I think the cascade that people want. So starting with that first kernel of wow and what that looks like and then providing this cascade. So- Yeah. Yeah, and then- ... lovely. ... you know, and so, and so I mean I think one of the things for people who are in the business of communications, um, I'll tell you a really great exercise that I used to do as a novelist, uh, when I was learning how to do this, and it's a really valuable interesting exercise, is I would look at the first paragraphs of books that I loved, you know, and, and I would literally, I would do, I would like count the words. I would be like, okay, like the opening of this novel, or even like the opening chapter, I'd be like the opening of this chapter or this novel, this t- novel has me by the lapels and I feel like I'm completely immersed in this world within six pages. How does this person, how does this person seem to pack so much into so little? And so like it, it, it's really, it's really worth it taking communications that you see as enormously effective and then reverse engineering them. And it, and it, and it boils down to things as simple as like as word counts, as opening gestures. Like what does it mean, for instance, to begin a communication in the interrogative? Meaning like what does it mean to begin to open a communication with a question? Like, um, you know, uh, what is, what is the best thing about working here and what's the worst thing about working here? And if I told you that if you wrote me three sentences about the worst thing about working here that I might change it, what would those three sentences be? And like suddenly you have somebody, like you have their attention because that communication is suddenly enormously meaningful and reaches out to them in a way that's practical. Love it. Love it. So step one, okay, reverse engineer, get the hook. Yeah. Step two, how do we help Betsy who's looking for that story that connects all of these different lessons over the course of training? Like how do you find the story? How do you find the story? And your stories, again, I'm a little, you know, I'm a little, uh, excited, but your stories are so wildly imaginative and engrossing and engaging and all of those things. Well, so it's, I think it's, I think it's really important to, um, to have, to have a story that, um, gives, gives the reader a clear sense of direction, like where are we going, and a clear sense of obstacle, like what do we have to overcome? And, and so let's say, let's say your, you know, let's... It's funny. I was just having this discussion with my staff at the magazine because it, it was kind of like, it was kind of like, well, we, we are always fighting, um, just as any sort of small press does to be defined not in terms of extents to the institution, right, but in terms of what our value add is. Mm-hmm. So in terms of, so, so in terms of that, um, you know, what you have to do is you have to say well, you know, if, if, if I have to tell a story, if I have to tell a story about value add, then what are the things that I already do and what are the things that I need to be able to do and then how can the institution help me? Again, and now it's talking about direction, like so that we can get to this place. You know, I mean, I think that, I think that, I think that it's always valuable to ask yourself, now this is, by the way, this is something, this is also like the nature of like how I compose. So whenever I write a beginning to a novel, I always have a really good sense of the end point, of the omega. And so, uh, it's, the middle is tough. Like the middle is really hard. But so I think that if you want to ask yourself like how do you find what the story is, I think in some ways one of the most important things you can do is ask yourself what is the end, what is the end point to which we haven't arrived yet? Because if you ask yourself what is the end point to which we haven't arrived yet, then the communication can sort of explain how we get there. Like a lot of people, like l- if you think, like it, what, what's, what's the reason certain kind of stories are boring? The reason certain stories are boring, this is the, this is the pat answer you hear all the time, like I don't know where this is going. I don't know where this is going. (laughs) ... but if you, if you can have an idea, a lodestar, a sense of where this story's going, because you think about it, like, you think about any sort of business, right? In any sort of business, you know, uh, you wouldn't, you wouldn't be starting a business if the thing already existed. You know what I mean? And it's, you know, you- you're trying to, you're trying to create this new thing or provide this thing that people don't know they need. So, what does that look like when it already exists? And then how can you tell a story about maybe the optimal way that, um, you would get there? And then, the kind of problems you may, you may foresee running into that, you know, we as a team will, like, overcome. Mm-hmm. And then, and then what, then what you have is, um, uh, you have a way of taking things like setbacks and f- and, and, and plugging those into a narrative where it's like, "Yeah, you know, today was a crappy day, but this is where we're headed, and we're gonna get to this place." Yeah. Yeah, interesting. Very mission-driven. Very mission-driven. I like it. I like it a lot. Yeah. Do you see that, um ... Has your book resonated equally as well with multi generations and multi ... Because one of the things in the workplace to get someone's attention that you have to grapple with is five generations in the workplace consuming information in a very decidedly different manner. So, it seems like novels, or particularly your novel, cracked through that barrier. Is that an issue that people have to think about today, or does it just come organically? So, you know, it's funny. Uh, I will, I will share with your audience, I literally just got one of these today. I get them, like, I get them, like, every ... I'm not kidding, Jody, I get them, like, every two or three days, and it's a little bit like what happened with you, like, where somebody writes me, some stranger writes me- Yeah. ... and is like, "I just need you to know, like, how much this meant to me, this book." And it is not limited to generation X people who grew up in that era, although certainly gener- Workers or ... Right. Well, yeah, but I mean- Wild actors. (laughs) Whatever. It's- But the wild, but the wild thing is that, like, you know, like, I think for a certain generation of people who grew up in the '80s, like, the book is enormously meaningful just because it is a recapture of that time, et cetera, et cetera. But it's been, it's been really amazing, uh, reaching people who are in their early 20s, um, who are either interested in that time or who, who are astonished at how they can have, like, similar kinds of struggle. Um, I think, again, one of the most important things when y- you know, th- this goes back to what I was talking about with regard to, like, recognizability. Like, when, when, when, when you're, when you're telling a story about, um, anything, like when I'm, you know, w- when I'm telling a story, for instance, about the magazine, The Sewanee Review, one of the great taglines we came up with for The Sewanee Review, which is the oldest continuously published literary magazine in America, is, um, our motto is, "The Sewanee Review. New since 1892." And that is a ca- that is, that is, like, a really catchy, uh, descriptor, but it's also a story about the magazine we're trying to be, because we're, we're, we're a magazine that, that has this, like, very, very storied past. But we're committed to being new, to publish the best new literature just as back then, stuff that for people now would seem fusty and, you know, uh, you know, not relevant, uh, uh, was enormously relevant and important then. So, so the point there is, like, I think that, you know, an idea, like, being new since we were old is something that it doesn't matter how old you are, you can buy into that because again, uh, you know, everybody, everybody, doesn't matter which age you are, you could be in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s, you all share the feeling that the worst thing you can do is get stuck running in place, treading water, not moving forward. And so that becomes a story that everyone can buy into and in their own little worlds within a company can be like, you know, "How do I, how do I participate in making this place new, better? How do I become part of making this place move forward?" And so again, again, "New since 1892" is a way of telling that s- telling that story in a way that's applicable for everyone, and similarly with in, in, in the novel, it was like, well, you know, to really get in the weeds, Jody, like, um, but I think it's really, uh, important. Like, I, I think one of the reasons Playworld has been successful is because actually it doesn't matter when you were born. Being a kid is to live through, uh, what it's like when it didn't seem strange at the time. You know, when you're a kid, all this crazy stuff that happens to you doesn't seem strange at the time, and no matter what generation you're born in, you spend time unpacking that. You spend your life unpacking your childhood. And so again, like, the trick...And by the trick, I don't mean, like, let me tell you the secret. But I think the thing that you really have to do when you're in this position of communication is saying to yourself, like, "What's the thing that I'm struggling with or trying to communicate that everyone can identify with that leads to buy-in?" And in the language of fiction, we would call it suspension of disbelief. Like, that would le- that leads the reader to be like, "Okay, like, I'm gonna listen to this voice. This voice has authority. This voice is gonna tell me a story that I've never heard before." I like that. I like that a lot. Yeah. And the other thing that I thought, and we talked about this when we did meet, was the layering upon different things so that if one thing doesn't resonate, you have the me, we, and the world. So I was very... When I read your novel, I was very caught up in the me. I saw, "Oh, this is New York. I lived in New York. Oh, this is me at that time and place that I was." But then the world that you brought into our conversation that I wasn't even considering, the political climate. What was going on then and how is that relevant right now? So that there was always something that somebody could pick up and absorb and, and just love. Thank you. You're welcome. And I'm sure that it wasn't perhaps, uh, unintentional. No, I mean, I mean, look, I mean, going back to, I think one of your first questions which was so interesting, which is, you know, like how long do you, you know, how long do you work on something until you've overworked it? I mean, I think that one of the things, again, like insofar as a novelist can be helpful, you know, when you... When... Making any kind of communication, whether aesthetic or, you know, you know, an intra-busines kind of communication is not easy. It's hard. Like, it's, it, it's hard telling a story to other people or, or, or, or telling something in a way that communicates to them how vital something is. Like, you, um, you have to be goi- you have to be willing to go through the process. You have to be goi- willing to go through the process of understanding what you're really trying to say. So, like, welcome to, like, writer's hell, which is there's the, there's the stuff you write and then the subsequent revision that's involved. Like, it is a very, very... What I'll, I'll tell people, as someone who does this for a living, it is a very, very rare thing that you, you know, lay down track, as it were, that you, like, write, you know, a sentence, a paragraph, you know, a, a scene, a chapter that doesn't go through extraordinary revision, um, because you're, you're just getting closer and closer to what you're trying to say exactly. And it's during that period to talk about the, you know, the, wh- wh- what'd you say? The I, we, world? Is that what you said? Yes. Yeah. The me, we, world. Where, where, because you, you become aware as you're writing a novel of, like, certain themes that keep cropping up, you know, unconsciously that then you're like, "Wait a second. Like, what am I... Why does this thing keep appearing? What am I trying to say here?" You know, you know, in the case of my novel, which, you know, takes place at the very end of the Carter Administration, the beginning of the Reagan Admi-Administration, like, what, what, what did the politics of that era have to, have to say about what it meant to be a kid? What did, what did the politics of that era have to say about what it meant to be a parent? What did the politics of that era m- have to say about what it meant to be a citizen of this country? And then, you know, that's when you, I think, are really communicating on, like, a three-dimensional chess level and, like, really doing, like, world-building because you're, you know... It's really interesting, Jody. What it ends up doing is it informs, like, you don't just... You're like, "Oh, okay, now I need a description of, like, a street in New York." You're looking at, at, at any description of what a character, where a character is moving through the lens of these kinds of themes you're talking about, and that makes the world have its very distinct features. But do we have to be concerned with brevity? Is that the new thing in the world of characters or in the world of attention deficit? Is there any rules that you've recently stumbled upon that say it has to be this length- No. ... or this number of pages or when you're reading your submissions for the, for the magazine? Uh, don't... I mean, I, I, I bet you I'm not alone. I mean, maybe people will respond to this in chat. But, I mean, it's so interesting to me, for instance, how certain forms of romantasy, like, you, you know, pick your series of romantasy. Like, these are, like, you know, series of 10, books, like, and four to pages a pop. (laughs) People are just, like, zooming through, right? I think, I think the more important thing to focus on, uh... Look, I'll, I'll put it to you this way. In my opinion, if you're writing to an attention deficit economy, you're just participating in attention deficit. The real question is, I mean, like, you know, you, you spoke about being gripped by a book that's pages and that you read, you know, quickly. I mean, like, you know, yeah. Is there an attention deficit economy? Is, is, is, is, is, is attention something that everyone is fighting for? Absolutely. But, um, I don't know. Sometimes I feel like, Jody, it's like, wouldn't you be a stronger company or a stronger organization if you cultivated the opposite?... wouldn't that become like a superpower if, like, if, like, what you're trying to cultivate is an actually a higher level of attention, concentration, and focus? You know what I mean? Is it something that you even think about or thought about when you were pr- no, never? Never. Never, I do not. Um, I mean, I think that, you know, uh, um, I do not because, um, I can tell you, and again, l- listeners can extrapolate from this what they will, but, you know, um, you know, you start a project like this and it actually becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly, you know, you're three chapters in and you look at sort of, again, going back to that idea of direction, like, where you want this story to end. Mm-hmm. And you look at, like, how long your chapters are running and you're like, "Uh, like, this is gonna be a long book." And then you're like, "But this is the story that I have to tell." And so, I think part of, I think, I think part of the trap of some of the concern about attention is that you, you, you, you, you risk trying to sort of tailor your message to everyone, and that's not what you should be doing. You need to be tailoring your message to the people who need to hear it. And the only way you, you, you get a really great message that the right people need to hear is buying t- is being distinctly and completely yourself, in my opinion. And that's where you get to, like, I mean, like, I don't wanna speak out of school and speak to your side of the tracks, but I mean, like, that's where you get into things like brand identity and, like, you know, I mean, you know, it's, it, it's fascinating to me, like, feel how, feel how, feel how you may about, like, you know, uh, you know, a company like Amazon, but, but going back to my idea of, like, um, uh, an idea of, um, where you're going, think about the degree to which a company like Amazon has now modified the way in which we shop and behave as consumers. Uh, on a certain level, that means that the founders of Amazon had a story in mind about how, like, you know, convenience and delivery of logistics should work. You know? It, it's, so, I mean, it's, it, and, and, and, and, and so to me, you know, like, a novel, a novel when you're writing a novel, and if you're writing a good novel, what you're doing is you're absolutely committing to a, a kind of version of, of a world. Like, word to word, sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, scene to scene, chapter to chapter, and that's what makes it powerful. Wow. Amazing. Um, so let's just dive into the elephant in the room about the use of AI, because I'm sure right now it's become a very important tool in the toolkit for everyone to use. W- how has that changed, well, how has it changed the world of fiction, if at all? How do you see it enhancing the world of today's communication in the workplace? If you have any thoughts on that, love to know about that. Well, so, so you're talking to somebody who is, you know, decidedly old school about that. I think that, um, I think insofar, uh, I mean, we don't, we don't have any of, uh, do I use things like ChatG- GPT on my own? Yes. Do I use them for communications? No. What I do use ChatGPT for is as a sounding board for certain kinds of ideas, because her- here, here's my feeling about, here's my general feeling about AI. If, if on any level of business AI is replacing the work that individuals need to do to have a degree of mastery over their particular areas of practice, then you're doing things backwards. I think that the, the, the best uses of AI are as, um, counterexamples, enhancements, um, uh, uh, idea generators, uh, uh, uh, means of research but with a high degree of prejudice because of the tendency for things like AI to hallucinate and be erroneous, which it, which it is. Um, and so, so again, I find, for instance, that AI as a communicator is, is, is a very, is a, is a very recognizable brand of milk toast. And so that, like, you know, so you have to be, again, like, I think you have to be... You always have to work as hard as possible on your own to be the best possible communicator so that, um, you can use things like AI as a value-add. I do not worry about AI replacing great storytelling. I think that it is, like, y- you know, again, it goes back to what I was saying about, like, being just completely you. Um, you know, uh, uh, AI comes at language from the outside in, not the inside out. You know, g- great writers, great communicators, I mean, you see this, by the way, you see this in, in cycles of political power. Like, um, you know, uh, we could pick, we could pick any president over the last, like, or years and I'll bet you we could all come up with certain, uh, uh-... punchlines as it were of each president, things that they said that have stayed in the memory and because, why? Because those kinds of communications were enormously effective in that moment. So, um, no, I mean, I think that, I think that, I think that we should never let AI take away our own agency and will to mastery. It should just be an enhancement. Mm-hmm. I wanna talk a little bit, uh, about what you said about your own voice, so how it has to be your own voice. But in the workplace, particularly on team communications, we are working as part of a team. Mm-hmm. And that's why it becomes so challenging to find a voice, to know what the true messages are, to know what the true story is, and moreover, to know when that story is being told. Can you just give us, as a, as a novelist, as a brilliant novelist, how did you know? How did you know when your story was done? How did you know? How do you know those things? (sighs) (laughs) Sorry. Sorry to s- (laughs) Well, I'm just, I, I, I'm kind of amazed that, that this is the conversation we're having 'cause it's like, it really speaks to, um, exactly what you deal with, um, with a writer, as, as a writer and it's, it's one of those things that, it, it tips a little bit into the mysterious. So forgive me if I'm not, like, hyper-eloquent about it, but, um, and I, and I certainly don't wanna sort of cop out and say you know when you know, but here's the thing. To, to go back to my story about when I began Playworld, what I knew, okay, what I knew was what I was doing wasn't working, okay? Like, the language felt dead. The story didn't seem engaging. Things weren't taking off. Trusting that, trusting that that... I, I just, I, I can't say who she is, but I was in New York and I had breakfast with a really successful novelist. And she was like, you know, her books have been, made into TV shows and she was like, "I'm working on this third book," and she's like, "And I always knew that this was gonna be my third book." And she's like, "And it's just, like, it's just failure to launch, failure to launch, failure to launch." And I told her the story I just mentioned about beginning my book and I was like, "That's because your book is telling you that you haven't found the language for your book yet, and you have to be willing, you have to be willing to trust that and wait for it." I mean, again, like, we're... (laughs) You know, novelists aren't moving at the speed of business, so there's that. But I will tell you an interesting story about the ending. Um, I'm really, really proud of the ending of Playworld. I'm really proud of, like, the last paragraph. But when I read the first draft of Playworld, um, I didn't feel like, I really didn't feel, emphasis on feel, that I had stuck the landing. Like, the, the, the book didn't seem to land as powerfully given all this work that I'd done up to that point. And I had this amazing experience, Jody, where, um, I was flying to Seattle for a conference from Nashville and I had my, I, you know, I had the edits on my, on my last chapter and I get on the plane and as soon as we take off, I open my laptop and for, like, four and a half hours, I am just, like, reworking, rewriting the last chapter of the novel. And I get to that final paragraph and I rewrite that final paragraph and there was a feeling of, like, an arc of electricity from the end of the book all the way to the beginning. And it was, it was just, it was like, I went into the bathroom of the plane and I wept. And, Jody, that's my mile-high club right there. That's like I got- (laughs) ... you know, finishing, finishing a novel a mile in the air. But, um, but the point of the story though is that that was when I knew I had completed, I had finished the book. And it was because finally I felt like I'd arrived at an ending that gave me language that I felt was, like, as powerful as the ending deserved. And so again, like, I guess maybe one of the most important things I could communicate to your audience is, is, you know, good communications are always gonna be a struggle and, and, you know, rarely do, rarely do great communications happen, like, instantaneously. Um, and so, and so being willing to hang in that space for, for the, for the time necessary to arrive at that communication is, is, is what I think separates good from great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very well said. Thank you so much for that. Yeah. We have a few minutes. Do you wanna share with us a little bit about what now you have going on? Oh my gosh. I think we know a lot of things and I know that there's more of Griffin that we are going to be seeing and hearing from. So, so first of all, Playworld, Playworld got optioned for television, so we're hoping that, uh, soon it will be coming to, uh, some, uh, TV network near you, and that's very exciting, and some really great people who I can't name are on board, but, uh, you know, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm very hopeful that, that at some point in the next-... couple of years, it'll be a limited series for television. I am starting to work on the sequel, um, which is about Griffin at age 33. Um, also we're in the process of shopping, uh, uh, our book of craft essays from The Sewanee Review, which are essays by some of the greatest writers in America, Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award winners, on the craft and art of writing. Um, uh, and of course, you know, I continue on a day in, day out basis to edit and, uh, run the oldest lit mag in America. Uh, and finally, my youngest daughter is a senior in high school and applying to colleges. So, um, her hair is on fire. (laughs) That is a lot to keep you busy with. So, uh, Zach, if you wanna join us and close this out, and also let me ask anybody in the audience if they have any questions about their struggles with communications or anything that you think that Adam can help with, please feel free. Leave it in the chat, jump online. Yeah, please add it in. And yeah, I really enjoyed listening to this conversation, and I also appreciate some of your comments about, like, the big elephant in the room with AI. And I was always curious how that's... what your thoughts were on how that's impacting communications, writing, and... 'Cause I often see that's how it's actually being used the most in the workplace today. Like, people are using it to craft their emails, they're using it to craft their internal communications to employees. And, um, I appreciate kind of your, your perspective on how we shouldn't allow that to get in the way to, to achieving mastery within the craft of whatever we're working on. Um- Yeah, and if you can't, if you can't... If you don't have the ability to, um, take something that is, um, generated by AI and, and, and, and really actually make it your own, then your... the people who you're communicating with are gonna be like, "Oh, that, that, that, that, that was written by ChatGPT." You know what I mean? And then that's gonna undercut your authority. By the way, that's something we talk about all the time at The Sewanee Review. When we decide, uh, what to accept, there are three criteria by which we accept something. One is, um, does it bring news? Like, does it, does it tell a story about something we've heard about in a completely new way? Um, is it stickiness? Does it, like, stay with you for days, like, after you've read it? And then the third is authority. And authority is really important here because authority is the degree to which... The way I like to tell it is, if the writer is writing about unicorns, then the writing should somehow communicate that this writer knows everything about unicorns, horn to hooves. And, like, if you, if you, if you write... If you rely on ChatGPT- (instrumental music plays)