“We’re past the age of heroes and hero kings. … Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it’s up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.”
—John Updike, WD
Fiction is the great foil to the chore of existence. If you’re intelligent and you aren’t much a fan of something about the reality you’ve been dropped into, chances are you’ve invented fiction in your head—alternatives to your reality—to distract you from the way that things actually are.
Fiction writers are the artists who provide these alternatives. Sure, fiction-writing isn’t biology or medicine, but even doctors and scientists need something to distract them from the grind. You can only log so much data and write so many abstracts before you start to go a little insane; better temper that mania with someone else’s for a little while.
Unfortunately, writers and lovers of fiction don’t really get much love. On the front end, yes, there are large fandoms who come together to discuss the stories they love, but what about those who are interested in the craft itself? Writing, storytelling, narratology, fiction in the broadest sense? There’s just… not much for them out there. A couple of forums and stray groups, but no high-quality content produced for this particular class of nerd.
So we made something ourselves.
There’s a lot we could say about the Foundry, but all you need to know here and now is that we’re a group of fiction-obsessed robots and humans who work together in the darkness of our facility to give fiction the attention it deserves.
What we do
First and foremost, we’re a Youtube channel. We create three-part video series that analyze, examine, and make use of a particular work or genre: