Middle and Upper School English teacher and English Department Chair Andy Hueller shares valuable writing tips with not only his students at St. Paul Academy and Summit School, but with a local radio audience. On Jan. 30, Hueller was a guest on Stillwater-based radio program Voices in the Valley, speaking about different strategies to build conflict and develop a memorable story.

Hueller says the way he got to be a good writer was through reading. He said that people only want to read stories that have good conflict, which emerges out of the actions of characters. Hueller generally described that conflict in stories derives from the wants of characters. When two different characters want two different things, conflict is presented and the writer must consider how they will coexist in the same world.

“The on-air interview felt really rushed while I was doing it. It wasn’t like having a conversation—they had an agenda,” Hueller said.

The show’s agenda included the discussion of the different origins of conflict in three of Hueller’s books. In Dizzy Fantastic and her Flying Bicycle, conflict derived from the character, who is a bullied girl. In contrast, the conflict in Skipping Stones at the Center of the Earth came from the setting, which was the impetus for this story’s development. First, Hueller constructed the underground world, then asked himself who would live there and why. With vignette-style writing, Hueller’s latest book, Slingers, relies on readers to understand the character’s thought-process enough to understand the big questions being asked over the course of the book as a whole. Vignette-style writing uses short poetic prose to develop characters but not plot and depends on the audience to collate universal themes and conflict.

The show covered all that material in eight minutes. After the experience, Hueller described how the radio show  developed as quickly as a fast-moving plot.

“When I listen back, I guess they knew what they were doing. The program segment doesn’t sound rushed,” Hueller said.

Hueller’s interview aired Jan. 30, but can be listened to here (Hueller is introduced eight minutes in to the podcast and speaks unit). The Shire Literary Center broadcasts Voices in the Valley every Saturday morning from 10:00 to 10:30 on KLBB 1220 AM.