Gabriel Ertsgaard, "A Fiction Writer’s Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism" (Bloomsbury, 2025)

About this episode

Gabriel Ertsgaard discusses his book on incorporating nonviolent heroism into fiction writing.

Superhero violence and graphic action sequences are prevalent on the screen and on the page, but this book takes an alternative route with practical guidance, frameworks, and tools for incorporating the principles of peacebuilding and nonviolence into compelling fiction. By mapping a path less travelled but just as vital in divisive times, in n A Fiction Writer’s Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism (Bloomsbury, 2025) Dr. Gabriel Ertsgaard shows writers how they can enact nonviolent heroism in their characters, model civil resistance in their stories, and create worlds around a mythos that champions redemptive nonviolence. With concepts applicable to writing for fiction, drama, the screen, and narrative poetry, A Fiction Writer's Guide to Peace deconstructs the necessity for violence in popular works, explores key concepts in peace studies, and helps writers establish their own peace poetics. Focused around the narrative craft techniques of character arcs, campaigns, duels, and worldbuilding, the book features numerous creative writing prompts and examples from key works. These include films such as Trading Places, Selma, Lage Raho Munna Bai, and Frozen and literature…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Gabriel Ertsgaard

Topics covered

• nonviolent heroism
• peacebuilding
• creative writing
• character development
• narrative techniques
• violence in fiction

Keywords

• nonviolence
• fiction writing
• peace studies
• storytelling
• creative prompts
• character arcs
• worldbuilding

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Bloomsbury

Books & works: A Fiction Writer’s Guide to Peace: Crafting Nonviolent Heroism, Trading Places, Selma, Lage Raho Munna Bai, Frozen, Shakespeare's plays, A Christmas Carol, Bridgerton

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