Daystar and Alexander hang out with Duncan Sabien (TK17) at LessOnline, and invite him back on the show to chat about his views on the Magic the Gathering Color Wheel this time, as well as some other stuff . Duncan is the writer of Animorphs: The Reckoning , as well as a variety of other great essays on culture, epistemology, and more. Co-hosted by Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected...
Oct 19, 2025•49 min•Ep. 67
Daystar and Alexander hang out with Max Harms at LessOnline, and invite him to record an episode on his books Crystal Society , Crystal Mentality , and Crystal Eternity . Max works at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, and the trilogy is an imagining of what Artificial General Intelligence might be like, written from the perspective of one of the AI's subagents. His newest book, Red Heart , will be out November 3rd and is available for pre-order. https://maxharms.com/redheart Co-hosted...
Oct 03, 2025•44 min•Ep. 66
Daystar and Alexander talk about AI in writing, both for creating fiction and its impact on writing fiction set in the modern world. Hosted by Daystar Eld and Alexander Wales . With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected
Sep 12, 2024•40 min
Daystar and Alexander record in front of a live audience at LessOnline to talk about Utopian Fiction; what it is, why it's so rare, and what it says about us as individuals and societies. Hosted by Daystar Eld and Alexander Wales . With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected
Jul 09, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Short episode where Daystar and Alexander speak with Velorien, one of the writers of Marked for Death , to discuss the impact of reader feedback in serial fiction. Hosted by Daystar Eld and Alexander Wales . With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected...
Jan 19, 2024•24 min
Daystar and Alexander discuss the role of money and class in fiction, and how it can affect, or fail to affect, their decisions and interactions. Hosted by Daystar Eld and Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected
Nov 27, 2023•40 min
Alex and I attended a writing retreat with some other authors in the rationality community, and while there decided to host an impromptu episode on subverting expectations, joined (primarily) by our Nebula nominated friend, Jamie Wahls. All I had to record with was my laptop, so apologies for the sound quality! Co-hosted by Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected Links: http://jamiewahls.com/...
Jan 23, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 61
Today we're joined once again by Duncan Sabien, aka TK17, to discuss his incredible rationalfic, Animorphs: The Reckoning . It was recorded shortly after the story finished and includes questions on not just his writing process, but the various decisions that went into changes made from canon, so spoilers ahead! Co-hosted by Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected Links: Duncan's "How the MTG Color Wheel Explains Humanity" Animorphs: The ...
May 15, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 60
Today we discuss Alexander's original serial fiction, Worth the Candle , and the various decisions and aspects of the story that came up throughout the writing process. Co-hosted by Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected
Nov 17, 2021•1 hr 46 min•Season 1Ep. 59
Daystar and Alexander discuss gender in fiction, and how it cultural gender norms or deviances can inform not just character personalities but can be an interesting part of world building. Co-hosted by Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected
Aug 06, 2021•55 min•Ep. 58
Daystar and Alexander discuss using different species or "races" in fiction, and how it informs characters and is addressed by different types of stories. Co-hosted by Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected
Feb 19, 2021•49 min•Ep. 58
Daystar and Alexander discuss race in fiction, or rather, species, and how it informs characters and is addressed by different types of stories. Co-hosted by Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected Timestamps 03:38 Race as a Social Construct 14:20 Approaches to Race in Fiction 22:30 Black Superman 32:55 How Race Informs Character 48:01 Literal Racism 56:48 Research...
Sep 10, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 56
Daystar and Alexander discuss politics as a plot device, and and political fiction as a genre. Co-hosted by Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected Timestamps: 00:35 What is a political plot? 8:58 Main types of political plot structures 24:00 Political 5 Man Band 37:05 Challenges Links: Rules for Rulers...
Jun 25, 2020•58 min•Ep. 55
Daystar and Alexander discuss irrational or non-rational fiction. Co-hosted by Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected Timestamps 00:35 "Rational" vs "Irrational" 10:04 How do you distinguish? 18:50 Conversations around the difference 33:05 Audience Mindset 48:18 Writing non-rational fiction...
May 22, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 54
Daystar and Alexander discuss horror in fiction, and the unique challenges and opportunities that come with rational horror. Co-hosted by Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected Timestamps 0:37 What Do You Find Scary in Fiction? 7:42 Rational Horror 22:50 Horror vs Thriller 31:00 Strengths of Prose Horror Links Hereditary It Follows Dr. Who S4E11 - Midnight Cordyceps Ginny Weasley and The Sealed Intelligence Antimemetics In the Mouth of M...
Mar 18, 2020•39 min•Ep. 53
Daystar and Alexander discuss dropped threads and side plots in stories, what tends to lead to them and how to manage them as you go. Timestamps 2:34 Serial Fiction 9:32 What Ends Up on the Page 14:55 Side Plots 17:10 Serials 21:25 Why Threads Get Dropped 27:30 Story Shifts 37:30 Our Dropped Threads 44:28 Bonus Dropped Threads
Dec 25, 2019•52 min•Ep. 52
Daystar and Alexander discuss character flaws; what makes for good ones, how to avoid Mary Sues, and why some flaws show up so often compared to others. Timestamps 0:35 Flaws As Conflict Generators 5:53 Mary Sues 15:23 Brought Low 23:14 Most Common Flaws 36:02 Rarest Flaws Twig by Wildbow The Erogamer by Groon the Walker...
Nov 17, 2019•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 51
Daystar and Alexander discuss the reasons authors abandon stories before they're finished, whether they want to or not. Hosted by Daystar Eld and Alexander Wales With thanks to Tim Yarbrough for the Intro/Outro music, G.A.T.O Must Be Respected Time Stamps 1:26 Abandonment vs Hiatus 6:16 Different reasons for Abandoning 17:10 Alex's List 25:55 Managing Burnout 39:37 Other Authors 48:21 Author Trust...
Jun 06, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 50
Daystar and Alexander discuss Ideological Turing Tests; what they are, why they're important in fiction, and how to try to pass them as best you can. Timestamps: 0:34 Turing Tests 6:15 Avoiding Caricatures Isn't Enough 10:14 Passing ITT 25:48 Frames 37:53 Personal Challenges 47:11 Presentation
Apr 27, 2019•57 min
Daystar and Alexander discuss romance in fiction, particularly in finding meaningful romantic conflicts as either the major plot, or as a subplot in a broader story. Timestamps: 7:21 Body Language and Chemistry 14:00 Source of Romantic conflict 21:43 Troubled vs Doomed 30:20 Extreme Romantic Contexts 36:29 Compatibility 43:06 Conflict from Change 50:38 New and Ongoing Conflicts
Feb 19, 2019•56 min
Daystar and Alexander discuss the value and pitfalls of using time skips, long and short. Timestamps: 1:13 The Two Axes 11:51 Rules for Timeskips 25:27 Relationships 42:13 Extremely Long Timeskips
Jan 16, 2019•49 min
Bonus bit of conversation from Episode 46.
Jan 10, 2019•11 min
Daystar and Alexander discuss the common necessities of research for writing fiction. 0:30 A Stable of Experts 12:49 Inspirational Research 19:15 Spot Research
Dec 11, 2018•49 min
Daystar and Alexander are joined by professional game writer Kuiper to discuss writing as a skill, or rather a set of skills, and the ways people can improve them. Timestamps: 1:19 Writing as a skill 21:03 What improves writing? 24:20 Don't grow attached to your ideas 32:45 Skilling up one at a time 45:36 Sticking with or abandoning 50:25 Other ways to improve writing.
Oct 13, 2018•1 hr 7 min
Special guest Erratic Errata joins Daystar and Alexander to discuss more aspects of world building, particularly in his serial A Practical Guide to Evil. 1:04 Planet of Hats 11:31 Societal Axioms 19:30 Reconstructing Tropes 25:56 Playing with Narrative 35:06 Worldbuilding Differences 43:38 Free Will and Deities 49:39 Video game inspiration 55:15 A Practical Guide to Evil Q&A
Sep 09, 2018•1 hr 18 min
Daystar and Alexander discuss reader feedback, and taking criticism constructively. Timestamps: 2:02 Paretto's Principle 6:30 Trends and Spikes 19:50 Typos vs Style 26:56 Continuity 29:30 Actionable 37:49 Deep Criticism 45:50 Spoilery feedback
Jun 27, 2018•56 min
Special guest CthulhuRaeJepsen joins the podcast to discuss pseudonyms, and his story Worth the Candle. Timestamps: 2:19 Writing Under Pseudonym 7:52 Worth the Candle 17:07 Spoiler Talk up to Ch. 84
May 13, 2018•47 min
Daystar and Alexander discuss worldbuilding, and why considering second-order effects is so important to making it rational, and can help in finding or fleshing out good plots. 2:50 Battle School concept 6:46 Inadequate Equilibria As Story Elements 22:55 Shadows of the Limelight 28:22 Consequence of the Consequence 37:20 Aesop Exacerbation 41:14 Confronting Civilizational Inadequacy
Apr 08, 2018•48 min
Daystar and Alexander review the movie The Prestige, and explore what made it such a well constructed, perhaps even rational, work of fiction. Timestamps 2:24 Summary + Was it Rational? 16:30 Foreshadowing 21:34 Clashing Ideologies 25:22 Noticing Confusion 30:25 Magic and Storytelling 45:40 Repeat Viewings
Mar 10, 2018•48 min
Daystar and Alexander discuss children in fiction, including what makes them realistic and why reactions to them can vary so widely. Timestamps 0:31 Advantages of child protagonists 4:43 "Children don't act like that." 16:00 Keeping smart/mature children children 20:37 Evergreen methods 26:40 Predictive Processing and "Wonder" 34:33 In Pokemon: ToOS
Jan 13, 2018•44 min
