#457: Chuck Palahniuk, Author of Fight Club — A Masterclass in Creative Living and Dangerous Writing

Podcast Notes Key Takeaways  One of the best things you can do to improve your writing is to read it aloud to people. You can tell what parts are engaging, funny, boring, etc., by the mood and reaction of the audience.This works much better in person than on Zoom:“Right now I’m still trying to conduct my writers workshop, and we’re doing it on Zoom and it is death. Because as you read your work on Zoom, you’re not getting the ongoing, the laughter, the groans, the inhales, the fantastic silence of terror. You’re not getting any emotional feedback.” – Chuck PalahniukTry to hook your reader within the first paragraph, or even better, the first sentence:“I would argue that right from the get-go, from the first sentence, you’ve got to engage the audience. And that goes back to journalism, that your lead has to be really strong.” – Chuck PalahniukEngage the reader on a physical level, not just an emotional or intellectual one:“That’s why so many of my stories really involve either sex, or violence, or illness, or drugs, about something that heightens the physical awareness of the characters.” – Chuck PalahniukWrite your story in a way that the audience knows something before the characters do so that the audience keeps reading to find out what happens:“When you have a character who’s making an ongoing mistake, you keep the audience really engaged because the audience feels superior…and wants to see the character come to enlightenment.” – Chuck Palahniuk “So it tends to be between the age of 31 and typically 33 that people who have studied in a field, create their breakthrough, or create their masterpiece.” Chuck started writing Fight Club when he was 31 and finished when he was 33Although Fight Club eventually became a cultural masterpiece, it only sold 2,000 copies in its first year“It was a big bomb at the beginning.” – Chuck PalahniukWhen Chuck writes, he is at peace with himself and the world. If he’s not writing a book, he starts drinking, getting emotional, and picking fights.“Because when I’m writing, all of that negative, all that anxiety goes into the work and my life is so peaceful and so productive.” – Chuck Palahniuk

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Chuck Palahniuk, Author of Fight Club — A Masterclass in Creative Living and Dangerous Writing | Brought to you by ShipStation, ButcherBox, and Thrive Market. More on all three below. 

“The goal is to make people laugh and then to really break their heart.” — Chuck Palahniuk

Writer Chuck Palahniuk (@chuckpalahniuk) has published twenty-three national and international best-selling books. These include fifteen prose novels, a collection of short stories, two graphic novels, two coloring books, a travel guide, a collection of essays, and a memoir about his life as a writer. He was raised in a desert town with a population of three hundred at the time of his birth in 1962. He received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oregon.

Palahniuk is best known for his novels Fight Club and Choke, both of which were made into films. Publication of his short story Guts in the Sunday Guardian prompted a sharp drop in circulation. He frequently contributed fiction to Playboy, where his stories Romance, Cannibal, and Zombie had to be personally approved by Hugh Hefner. His new book, The Invention of Sound, is coming out on September 8th.

Please enjoy!

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