You are going to love this episode. Seriously. Brandon throws an idea at Dan and Howard, and then we spend 15 minutes expanding on that idea as if we were going to base a story around it. You people who keep asking where we get our ideas? You're asking the wrong question. Ideas are easy to come by -- everybody has them. The right question is "how do you turn an idea into a story?" This podcast skips to the important part of answering the question: demonstration. Enjoy! This episode of Writing Ex...
Oct 25, 2009•18 min•Season 3Ep. 22
Larry Correia is either the guy who did everything wrong and then broke into publishing anyway, or he's the exception who proves the rule. He self-published Monster Hunter International, and then got picked up by Baen Books. If you're considering self-publishing, this is the podcast for you. This week's episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by Scenting the Dark by Mary Robinette Kowal. Writing Prompt: A self-published book becomes a threat that will end the world... Our Sponsors: * Check ...
Oct 19, 2009•16 min•Season 3Ep. 21
Larry Correia, whose debut novel Monster Hunter International hit the market this summer, joins us for a discussion of plot-driven vs. character driven fiction. We start with a definition of terms and a discussion of the battlefield. Then we dive into the nuts and bolts of how to write what it is you want to be writing. This week's Writing Excuses is brought to you by Audible. Head over to Audiblepodcast.com/excuse for a free audio book and a 14-day trial. And at our recommendation, try out Step...
Oct 12, 2009•16 min•Season 3Ep. 20
John Brown joins us again, and tells us that fiction "is all about guiding an emotional response in a reader." We begin with a discussion of depression, which John (like many of us) had to deal with. He tells us about the paths for emotional response, and how a beginning writer can end up in the depths of depression just by looking at the work of successful writers. But working through that, especially with cognitive therapy, can provide the writer with fantastic tools for informing his or her w...
Oct 05, 2009•16 min•Season 3Ep. 19
John Brown rejoins us for this discussion of repetition. How do we, as writers, avoid repeating ourselves? We're not just talking about the literal re-use of words and phrases here. We're interested in avoiding the re-use of themes, character arcs, and plotlines. Forget the problems Howard might have coming up with a new joke... he (and all of us) need to reach further than that to keep things fresh. This week's Writing Excuses is Brought to you by Servant of a Dark God by John Brown. Writing Pr...
Sep 28, 2009•17 min•Season 3Ep. 18
Mary is back! We still had a Mary Robinette Kowal episode from WorldCon 67, and now you have it too! We take questions from the audience, and then answer them. Here are the questions: What do you do if your characters revolt and start to take over the story? When you became a writer what most surprised you with its difficulty? How do you build the history for the worlds your books are set in? Three huge questions, TWELVE answers. Enjoy! Oh... and your writing prompt: write about The Predestined ...
Sep 21, 2009•18 min•Season 3Ep. 17
John Brown, debut author of Servant of a Dark God, joins us for this discussion of the avoidance of self-insertion. In polite company we call this the "Mary Sue," because it's difficult to say "self-insertion" in polite company, much less with a straight face. In broader terms, what we're covering is voice, and how to make our characters sound like themselves rather than us. This week's Writing Excuses is Brought to you by Servant of a Dark God by John Brown. Our Sponsors: * Check out MasterClas...
Sep 13, 2009•18 min•Season 3Ep. 16
We won a Parsec Award at Dragon*Con, and it's a darn good thing we weren't there in person to give an acceptance speech. Otherwise this podcast might have happened live, in front of hundreds of people with sharp and/or heavy things in their pockets. Our Sponsors: * Check out MasterClass and use my code masterclass.com/EXCUSES for a great deal: https://MasterClass.com * Check out Talkiatry and use my code Talkiatry.com/WX for a great deal: https://www.talkiatry.com Support this podcast at — https...
Sep 13, 2009•4 min
Mary Robinette Kowal joins us again, live at WorldCon 67 in Montreal! This time we fell back on that tried-and-true "Questions from the Audience" format, so the topic is pretty much what the audience asks for on the fly. If the questions were all over the map, our answers require a new school of cartography. It all kind of fits under "process," though, so for categorization purposes, we're calling it that. Also, we failed to discover the Northwest Passage. Maybe we'll find it next week, when Mar...
Sep 06, 2009•17 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Aside from being a delightful author and a Campbell award winner, Mary Robinette Kowal is a professional puppeteer. She joined us at WorldCon 67 in Montreal, and totally schooled us in front of a live audience. I mean it. TOTALLY SCHOOLED. If you want to learn something new about writing, and I mean something really NEW you need to listen to Mary talk about puppetry. You can't see the perpetual looks of astonishment and epiphany us jaded professionals wore during this recording, but I assure you...
Aug 31, 2009•14 min•Season 3Ep. 14
Howard here, folks. On behalf of the entire Writing Excuses team I'd like to apologize in advance for that which you are about to receive. You know how sometimes one of those crazy thoughts seems like a good idea, and the more you talk about it the better the idea seems, and so then you actually do it and are left looking back at it with a mixture of awe and horror? This episode is like that. Brandon thought it would be funny to have a discussion about dialects in which Dan and I actually do dia...
Aug 24, 2009•16 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Meanwhile, several side-characters found themselves looking for a sub-plot in the tavern. Something funny, or perhaps romantic to take the load off of the main story, but still tense enough to keep the pace going. Or maybe something that will let them introduce important elements to the main plot without the reader knowing that's what's going on... And that's pretty much what subplots are, and what they're for. But if we skip to the ending that way they can't do their job! So listen to the whole...
Aug 17, 2009•18 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Let's talk "trimming." Why do it? Well... because your manuscript is longer than it needs to be. Yes, we're talking to you. AND you. And you, too. None of you are exempt! (Well... maybe YOU are, but you can't be allowed to believe it.) So... what do you trim? We've covered "Killing Your Darlings" way back in Season One Episode Three, so while those are certainly on the list of things to cut, we're going to focus on tightening your prose and reducing word-count without changing the story. So that...
Aug 09, 2009•16 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Last week we discussed what kinds of events that you, the aspiring author, should be attending. This week we cover what you should and shouldn't be doing there. And we start with some don'ts. The word of the day? "Booth Barnacle." If last week's 'cast was a little long-winded, this one is downright rambling, coming in at a hefty nineteen minutes and thirty-eight seconds. Oh, the anecdotes! If you thought we were name-dropping last week (Phil Foglio, Kevin J. Anderson, and Lawrence Schoen) this w...
Aug 03, 2009•20 min•Season 3Ep. 10
As genre-fiction writers we attend a lot of conventions. As aspiring genre-fiction writers you probably want to be attending conventions. But which ones should you spend time and money on, and what should you plan to do while you're there? We start by categorizing conventions - literary conventions, anime conventions, media conventions, conferences and trade-shows. Comic-Con, which just wrapped up today, is a media con. WorldCon is a literary con. Clarion is a conference. BEA and E3 are expos. A...
Jul 27, 2009•16 min•Season 3Ep. 9
As we did with The Dark Knight and Watchmen (the comic, not the movie), once again we turn our searing critical insight on a major work of successful storytelling talk about what they did right. If you loved the new Star Trek movie, or even just kind of liked it, we'll tell you what the writers did to achieve that; if you hated it, we'll show you some things you can learn from it anyway. If you haven't seen it, well, I think it goes without saying that this is a spoilerific spoiler episode full ...
Jul 20, 2009•17 min•Season 3Ep. 8
You've seen it done... "Zombie Apocalypse in Space." "Perry Mason in the Armed Forces." It's genre blending, where the author takes themes prevalent in two different genres and combines them to create something new. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. We call down a few examples of both, and offer you listeners the sage advice you need to blend genres successfully. Summary: like the vegan barbecue chef, one of the secrets to your success lies in letting no-one know what that hamburger is m...
Jul 13, 2009•18 min•Season 3Ep. 7
What are dramatic breaks? We open this episode with Howard very genuinely playing Doctor Watson to Brandon's Holmes, which is amusing because as it turns out, Howard uses dramatic breaks every day. Simply put they are the points in the narrative, typically at the end of a chapter, where we cut to another scene. Sometimes we are shifting perspective, sometimes we are advancing the clock, and sometimes we're merely pausing to take a breath. What are we looking for in a dramatic break? How do we id...
Jul 07, 2009•17 min•Season 3Ep. 6
How do you take criticism? How do you react, if you even do react? Does criticism cause you to change the way you work? Criticism can come from your peers in a writing group, from editors sending you rejection letters, and from those one-star Amazon reviewers who are out there looking for something to hate. In this episode we provide anecdotes from other authors including Patrick Rothfuss and Kevin J. Anderson, and share our own experiences about criticism we've gotten and how we've responded to...
Jun 29, 2009•16 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Howard here... I've learned that it's a really bad idea to run out for a bio-break between podcasts. When I returned to the packed panel room I could tell that everyone's attitude towards me was subtly different. It wasn't until we started recording that I realized Brandon had turned our Q&A panel into a "Stump Howard" panel. Our good friend Eric James Stone joined us for the fun. As silly themes go, this one works well. So well, in fact, that we went six minutes into overtime. The questions...
Jun 22, 2009•21 min•Season 3Ep. 3
This episode was recorded live at CONduit in Salt Lake City with special guest Aprilynne Pike. Our topic: How do we "keep it real" when writing speculative fiction? What does that even mean? (Okay, it means making the stuff that exists in real life seem real.) Short answer: Research. We talk about how we go about researching the "real" elements of our various works, all the while trying hard not to go "squee" with our very first #1 New York Times Bestelling guest. We also discuss many of the sho...
Jun 15, 2009•15 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Don't you just hate it when things unfold out of order? Why do writers do that? We explain why they do it, and how they do it, and then we discuss how to avoid some common mistakes. Non-linear storytelling is inherently risky, after all. Maybe not as risky as jumping ahead two episodes in a non-serial podcast schedule, but it's still life on the edge. Writing Prompt: Write a story about a flashback that is completely false... This week's episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by Warbreaker...
Jun 08, 2009•17 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Welcome to Season 3 of Writing Excuses! With eighteen hours and fourteen months of podcasting history behind us, it seems appropriate for us to talk about history, and how to write it. We talk about the iceberg principle -- 90% of the history stuff you write never gets seen by the reader, it's just there to support the 10% that they do see, the "tip of the iceberg" -- and why for some writers it's just not the right ratio. We also discuss Worldbuilder's Disease -- none of the writing you're doin...
Jun 01, 2009•16 min•Season 3Ep. 1
And here we are, at the final episode of Writing Excuses, Season 2. As promised, this episode is going to be super-useful to new writers, but it's going to be extra-super-useful to one new writer in particular, Brandon's nameless friend who listened to 9 hours of Writing Excuses podcasts and is now too overwhelmed to write. Have you ever wondered why we only 'cast for 15 minutes (give or take, usually give, but still...) each week? It's because you're not supposed to be sitting there at the comp...
May 25, 2009•15 min•Season 2Ep. 33
This the third in our series of retrospective episodes. The most important thing Dan learned this year? Being a full-time author is a lot different than he thought it would be. How different? What was Dan expecting? Was he really imagining silk pajamas and a notebook computer on the beach? We talk about the types of non-writing work that we've found ourselves doing, and why those things are so important to us and to our careers. We discuss how our publishers' schedules impact our own, and why wr...
May 18, 2009•15 min•Season 2Ep. 32
Here's the second part of our three-part "what we learned this year" series. This time around Brandon tells us the most important thing he learned this year. Summed up? Gimmicks cannot compensate for bad writing. So... what's a gimmick? We begin with hooks and pitches, but gimmicks can include things like photo-realistic cover art, internet grass-roots campaigns, and factoids like "the author is only 17 years old." Story elements like cool magic systems, uniquely alien aliens, and diamond-hard s...
May 11, 2009•16 min•Season 2Ep. 31
This is the first of a three-part series in which Brandon, Dan, and Howard tell each other (and you, of course) about the most important thing each of them has learned in the past year. We start with Howard, who seems to believe that of all the many things he's learned about writing in the previous twelve months, the list-topper should be the fact that he is a satirist. So really the episode is about satire, and how that form differs from other humorous sub-genres. And then we talk about why kno...
May 03, 2009•16 min•Season 2Ep. 30
Let's talk about failure... but let's talk about it so that we can avoid it. How do you know if your ending has flopped? What kind of approaches to ending a story should you be avoiding? How can you recognize these approaches in time to avoid them? The best approach? Identify the promises you've made to your readers, and then fulfil them with your ending. Okay, now you don't have to listen. Writing Prompt: Start your book with an ending where everyone dies. This weeks Writing Excuses is brought ...
Apr 27, 2009•17 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Last week we talked about reading critically, reading as writers. This week we decided to apply that critical reading skill to Watchmen, the Hugo award-winning graphic novel by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins. We start (once we get past the donuts in our mouths) by breaking it down into character, setting, and plot, and then we further dissect each of those elements based on what we thought of them. This episode is chock full of spoilers. If you're planning on r...
Apr 20, 2009•19 min•Season 2Ep. 28
As a writer you obviously know how to read. But being a writer changes how you read, and what you read, and even why you read. Do you read more, or less as a writer? How do you read so that your reading doesn't interfere with writing? How do you channel your reading into bettering your writing? And what's the difference between a critical reader and a book critic? Writing Prompt: Write a story about a critic, but a critic who criticizes something abnormal like Cement Mixers. Our Sponsors: * Chec...
Apr 13, 2009•17 min•Season 2Ep. 27
