The Writing University Podcast

What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. –Augustine of Hippo, Confessions In this hour I’ll explore the possibilities and the limitations of storytelling in the context of time, moving from concept to craft, principle to process, the phenomenon of time in the real world to our own recreation of it on the written page. We begin with our heads in the clouds, exploring the physics and philosophy of chronos, before turning inward for a look at our own human experience of biological and psychological kairos, where we encounter our memories of the past and our dreams of the future, even as we struggle to keep up with the eternal ineffable now. From there we emerge onto the page to find Discourse Time, Story Time, Reading Time, and Real Time, using techniques of plotting and pacing and tense to create the narrative and historical chronologies that will take us from that promising tick of our tale’s first line to the satisfying tock of its last word.