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Writing Excuses 4.7: Q&A with James Dashner
22 februari 2010 · 16 min
Recorded live at LTUE 2010, here's a high-energy Q&A session with the Writing Excuses crew and our special guest James Dashner, author of The Maze Runner. We cover outlining vs. discovery writing, the return to the hairy palate, education for writers, killing people, whether or not we want a bagel, pragmatic approaches, authors who don't inspire us (and by "us" we mean "James Dashner"), and cooking up complex plots. Note: Brandon says "Episode 6" but he was totally wrong. This is 4.7, for real. Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: James pitches one of his favorites to us -- False Memory by Dean Koontz Writing Prompt: You're flying in an airplane when a wing falls off... but the plane keeps going. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses 4.6: Pacing with James Dashner
15 februari 2010 · 17 min
This episode was recorded live at Life, The Universe, & Everything 28, The BYU Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy, and features, among other things, our largest audience ever. Oh, and James Dashner, our friend and the author of The Maze Runner. It also features what has to be our roughest start ever. We don't get to actual content until around four minutes in. Seventeen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're pretending this was an object lesson. Also, we love picking on our friend James. Pacing! What do we do so that people keep turning pages? Which useful tricks do we hate? Which subtle methods do we prefer? And most importantly, what does James Dashner do? We talk about reveals, punchlines, cliffhangers, chapter length, and the "Brandon Avalanche." Also, we talk briefly about the look on my face, and the roof of James' mouth. Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Ender's Game: Special 20th Anniversary Edition by Orson Scott Card Writing Prompt: Someone opens a door, and finds a wet, seeping cardboard box on the doorstep. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses 4.5: Roleplaying Games as Tools for Story Telling
8 februari 2010 · 17 min
Roll for initiative, folks! Brandon, Dan, and Howard all play tabletop role-playing games, and sometimes even play together. The question of the hour (well... quarter-hour) is "how can these games help your world building, storytelling, and anything else having to do with good writing?" If this 'cast doesn't make you want to play RPGs with your friends, congratulations on a successful Saving Throw vs. Dark Podcast Magic. If this 'cast doesn't make you want to sit down and start writing, you have our condolences. That's not the saving throw you were supposed to make! In the spirit of not-necessarily-related personal information: This week we learn that Howard is moister than Dan. In related news, see the Writing Excuses crew this coming Saturday, February 13th, at the Life, The Universe and Everything Symposium at Brigham Young University in the Wilkinson Center. We'll be there for the full symposium, but on Saturday we'll actually be recording in front of an audience. You'll also get to meet Bob Defendi, who gets mentioned at least three times in this episode. Audiobook Plug: Nation, by Terry Pratchett Writing Prompt: Don't write about players being sucked into their RPGs. That's been done a lot. Suck the RPG characters out into our world, and see what happens. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not b… Lees meer
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Writing Excuses 4.4: Agents. Do you need one?
1 februari 2010 · 16 min
We're going to wade into a recent e-brouhaha, but it's not going to be the Amazon vs Macmillan one. No, this is the one where Dean Wesley Smith argued that authors do not need agents. But you don't need to read that to appreciate this 'cast. So... do you need an agent? This depends on the operating definition of "you" and "agent." What kind of contractual experience do you have? What kinds of things will your agent do for you? And if you decide you do need an agent, how do you go about identifying the agent who is right for you? We'll cover all of this and more! Unrelated to agents (but definitely in the "and more" category): Howard reveals deeply personal information in this podcast! Audiobook Plug: The Maze Runner, by James Dashner Writing Prompt: Write a story in which a bestselling recluse author dies, and his agent scrambles to keep the career alive without telling anybody. Skin in the game, baby! This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses 4.3: How to Manage Your Influences
25 januari 2010 · 19 min
How do you avoid letting other people's work creep into your own? We're all influenced by the media we partake in whether we admit it or not. How much of those influences should we allow into our own work? How do we control that? As we engage the topic, we admit that sometimes we want to be influenced, and that letting those influences do their work is a good thing. But this isn't the podcast where we cover that. This is the podcast where we talk about tuning that out. We also talk about tuning out the influence of those who are critiquing or commenting on our work. These might be fellow members of the writing group or other early readers, or they might (especially in Howard's case) be outspoken members of your audience ranting on web forums or wikis. And then we talk about whether or not we should allow Brandon to influence our work. Take that, Brandon! (Take it, in fact, all the way out to nineteen minutes and six seconds!) Audiobook Plug: The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Writing Prompt: Write a story, and pretend that a famous historical figure is looking over your shoulder and offering advice while you write. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses 4.2: Heroism
18 januari 2010 · 17 min
If you want to write a good, heroic hero, this is the podcast for you. We're not necessarily talking about the archetypical, classically-defined, capital-H "Hero" in this podcast, though. We're talking about what makes readers stand up and cheer. And yes, this can be applied to the archetype, but let's not digress. We talk about perseverance, sacrifice, hard work, fear-facing, and a bunch of other attributes that we find inherently heroic. Audiobook Plug: The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell Writing Prompt: Write a scene in which a character makes a noble sacrifice and is not rewarded. Mystery Soundbite! We have no idea who those gents with mouthfuls of marshmallows were, but Jordo caught them on tape... This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses 4.1: Types of Humor
11 januari 2010 · 20 min
Welcome to Writing Excuses Season 4, featuring new, shorter episode titles! Also, if you don't count the bonus episodes or the Parsec Award Acceptance Speech, this is our 100th Episode! Brandon kicks this off by asking "What does Howard do that's funny?" and then by categorizing the sorts of things he finds Howard doing. Obviously this puts no pressure whatsoever on Howard to be funny during the podcast. Which is good, because he really wasn't, cold medicine notwithstanding. Again, we manage talk about humor without being funny. We manage to cover character-based humor, physical humor, and non-sequitur, brushing alongside cognitive humor and exaggeration as we go, but hey... we only had 15 minutes to work with. Oh, and we ran over by 4 minutes and fifty-seven seconds. Writing Prompt: Write something funny using non-sequiturs and cold medicine. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 32: Collaboration
4 januari 2010 · 18 min
For starters, let's clear the air. Yes, the first episode of the new year is also the last episode of Writing Excuses Season 3. And yes, we'll be getting Season 2 and Season 3 on CDs pretty soon here. Collaboration! This is one of our all-time most requested topics, and we're covering it now because we still haven't done much actual collaborating but we want to talk about it anyway. Why? Because we each have some collaborations planned (including one for all three of us, but shhh... it's still a secret) and it will be fun to talk about this again in a year or so and argue about all the things we got wrong this time around. But you should still listen to what we say here in our collaborative infancy. That way you can lord it up over us when we flip-flop after having attempted to work together. You should also pay attention when we tell you beginning writers why you should not be collaborating. And then we'll give you some procedural tips for when you decide to collaborate anyway. Writing Prompt: Write a story (all by yourself) about a collaboration which goes horribly, horribly wrong. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 31: Tragedy
28 december 2009 · 16 min
Tragedy. It's just TRAGIC. Tragedy is also one of the classical forms that writers need to know how to work within. Why? Well... because the Greeks thought we should be forced to have strong emotional responses to literature. Writing Prompt: Write a delightful story about happy, cheerful anthropomorphic creatures who all die horribly. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 29: Antiheroes
21 december 2009 · 16 min
What is an Antihero? There are lots of definitions of this word, so Dan boils it down to just three: The Frodo, The Punisher, and The Talented Mister Ripley. And that third definition is the one Brandon believes to be the most correct, at least in the strict literary sense. This was a difficult 'cast for Howard because he's familiar with Frodo and The Punisher, but has no experience with The Talented Mister Ripley beyond movie trailers. He gets by, though. He's seen a lot of movie trailers. Have a listen, and learn a lot. Writing Prompt: Write a true, classically-defined antihero in such a way that Howard will enjoy it. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 30: Unreliable Narrators
14 december 2009 · 17 min
This episode totally would have updated earlier if I'd only known sooner that it was ready to go. Jordo says he emailed me early this evening, but if he HAD then you'd have been listening to this by 8:00pm Sunday. So... how much of that do you believe? Is the Narrator lying to you, or is he just wrong? Maybe he is lying to himself, and thinks he's being honest with you. Most importantly, though, how does any of this apply to your writing? Well, that's what the podcast is for... Writing Prompt: Have an event occur, and then provide five different character perspectives on the event... none of which are completely accurate. Note: this episode updated a little late because I wanted an object lesson in the write-up, not because I was relaxing on the couch until 11:15pm. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 28: World-Building Gender Roles
7 december 2009 · 17 min
Is there a disconnect? Brandon specifically introduces the episode as "World-building political correctness," but the title here says "World-Building Gender Roles." And then Brandon goes on to blame Howard for picking the title. There is, in fact, a disconnect. Oh the mirth! Howard was imagining a slightly wider scope for the 'cast, but Brandon focused the crew on just one aspect. And that's probably best. After all, this is only fifteen minutes long (okay, 17 minutes and 10 seconds) and as has been said before, we're not that smart. How does a 21st-century author go about world-building fantasy universe gender roles while writing for a 21st-century audience? How does the problem change if the setting is the far-flung future? And of more immediate interest, is it possible for three men to discuss this without a) putting their feet in their mouths while b) simultaneously stepping on landmines? Have a listen. We're going to wait waaay over here and hope the internet can't find us. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 27: Mixing Humor with Drama and Horror
1 december 2009 · 16 min
A Monday without Writing Excuses is kind of like a Tuesday without Writing Excuses, only far less aggravating. With Brandon once again by our side(s), we venture once more into the realm of humor: this time, specifically considering how to blend humor with decidedly unhumorous elements such as drama and horror. Why do humor and horror go so well together? How can you make something funny without losing the powerful character drama? And how did we possibly get through this episode without mentioning "Shaun of the Dead," which combines humor and horror and drama more brilliantly than anything in recent memory? Writing Prompt: Make the most inappropriate joke you can, but make it appropriate. Once again, Writing Excuses is brought to you by Audible.com, and this week we're trying something new: homework! Sometime in January we'll spend an episode examining "The Hero with A Thousand Faces," by Joseph Campbell, so this is your warning to study up. You can read your own copy, borrow one from the library, or sign up for a free trial Audible membership and get, through our special deal, an audio copy for free: http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 26: NaNoWriMo
23 november 2009 · 16 min
Dan, Howard, and Jordo descended into the basement at Dragon's Keep where members of the local NaNoWriMo chapter were attempting to bolster their word-counts for the day. We talked to them about National Novel Writing Month, and about the things that were getting them stuck. Good times! Writing Prompt: Kill one of your characters with a shovel. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 25: The Business of Writing Comics
16 november 2009 · 20 min
Dan and Howard are again joined by Jake Black, who writes comics (and some other things) for a living. Jake tells us how he got into the business, and we talk about how this might be applied to other folks. But you can't do it exactly the way he did it because they've bricked that entrance up. Writing Prompt: Our superhero gained his superpowers by writing technical articles for Wired... This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 24: Writing Comics with Jake Black
9 november 2009 · 20 min
Jake Black fills in for Brandon "#1 New York Times Bestselling Author" Sanderson this week, and that's perfect because Jake writes comics and Brandon doesn't. So mostly this is Dan holding Jake's and my feet to the fire. We'll talk about the business of writing comics next week. This week it's more nuts-and-bolts, and we run for almost 20 minutes... Writing Prompt: Write a story in which Superman swoops into a room, kicks something, and then turns into Spider-Man. This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 23: How to Write Without Twists
2 november 2009 · 16 min
Question: Can you write a good book without a plot twist? Better question: is it a good book if your readers predicted what was coming? Best question: is a podcast about predictable prose itself predictable? No, seriously... the best question is "how can we use predictable, formulaic plotting effectively?" We actually answer that one. Writing Prompt: "Sense & Sensibility & Terrorists" Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 22: Idea to Story
26 oktober 2009 · 18 min
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 Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*. Your writing prompt: Bugs are now magical. Ohcrap. *Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please! Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 21: Pitfalls of Self Publishing with Larry Correia
19 oktober 2009 · 16 min
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... Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 20: Plot- vs. Character-Driven Fiction
12 oktober 2009 · 16 min
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 Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Writing Prompt: Come up with a plot-driven story, and then try to make it good with boring characters. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 19: Emotion in Fiction with John Brown
5 oktober 2009 · 16 min
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 writing. And those tools are really why you're here. Listen closely! Writing Prompt: Give us villainous heroes, romance, and something that evokes terror. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 18: How To Not Repeat Yourself
28 september 2009 · 17 min
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 Prompt: The princess is trying to eat a pie, but someone is trying to stop her. Oh, and the fate of the world depends on the outcome. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 17: Characters & Worldbuilding Q&A with Mary Robinette Kowal
21 september 2009 · 18 min
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 Monkey. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 16: The Anti-Mary Sue Episode
14 september 2009 · 18 min
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. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses: Parsec Award Acceptance Speech
14 september 2009 · 4 min
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. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 15: Writing Process Q&A, with Mary Robinette Kowal
7 september 2009 · 17 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 Mary joins us for a third episode for more questions from the WorldCon 67 crowd. In completely unrelated news, something cool happened to us at Dragon*Con on Saturday. We'll talk about it in an upcoming 'cast. Lees meer
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3.14: The Four Principles of Puppetry, with Mary Robinette Kowal
31 augustus 2009 · 14 min
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 they were there. We learned so much from Mary we decided to record two more episodes with her. Not because we felt like you, our listeners, necessarily deserved it. We wanted these recordings for ourselves. Mary required us to share. It was part of the deal. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 13: Dialects and In-World Jargon
24 augustus 2009 · 16 min
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 dialects. So we did. We're all very sorry. In the spirit of eponymy, I shall now write an excuse: "It was late, and we were so tired that we thought this would be funny." Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 12: Subplots
17 augustus 2009 · 18 min
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 eighteen-minute podcast, and we'll rejoin our main characters next week, as the automated orbital lance counts down to zero... Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 11: Trimming
9 augustus 2009 · 16 min
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's what we cover in a brisk, 15-minute 'cast whose synopsis is at least fifty words longer than it needs to be. Maybe fifty-two. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 10: The Dos and Don’ts of Attending Cons
3 augustus 2009 · 20 min
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 week we throw around names like Larry Niven, Steve Jackson, John Ringo, and Tom Doherty. We sure hope you can learn from our meandering, celebrity-brushing reminiscences. And speaking of celebrity-brushing, brush up against us this week in Montreal at the World Science Fiction Convention! The Writing Excuses Panel is on Friday from 2:00pm to 3:30pm in P-513C, and will feature all three of your Writing Excuses hosts with as-yet-unnannounced special guests from the world of publishing, editing, and of course authoring genre fiction. And again, on the topic of celebrity-brushing and networking in general: one piece of linkage you introverts (and you untrained extroverts) absolutely MUST have - "Networking 201: How to Work a Room," by Diana Rowland. The long-awaited writing prompt (last week we just gave you the first half) is... a man arrives at a convention with something important in his pocket. It is an entire universe... and it has not been peace-bonded. This week's episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by the bad accents of Dan and Howard as they pitch Dungeon Crawlers Radio. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 9: Conventions You Should Be Attending
27 juli 2009 · 16 min
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. As authors and aspiring authors we want to focus on the conventions where we can rub shoulders with editors and agents. So have a listen and find out where you should be, and why... We'll cover what you should be doing at conventions in next week's 'cast. And here's hoping we'll see you at WorldCon! This episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by Dungeon Crawlers Radio, those nice guys who interviewed Howard at ConDuit, and then bailed Writing Excuses out when our recording equipment didn't make it to the show. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 8: What Star Trek Did Right
20 juli 2009 · 17 min
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 of spoilers. Listen at your own risk. This episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by Stacy Whitman, a fantastic freelance editor beloved by all three Writing Excuses hosts. She does fantastic work on all manner of fantastic writing (including Howard's recent project with Tracy Hickman, XDM: Extreme Dungeon Mastery. If you're looking for a good editor, she's fantastic. Writing Prompt: Spock-a-doodle doo! Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 7: Genre Blending
13 juli 2009 · 18 min
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 made of. No, that metaphor is not in the podcast. I just thought of it now. We finish with a discussion of the genres we've blended in our own work, and Brandon tells us about the science fiction story he's decided to work on. This episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery. Pre-orders close this Wednesday! Writing Prompt: Combine "Horror" and "Western" and don't make it look like either one. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 6: Dramatic Breaks
7 juli 2009 · 17 min
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 identify the right place to cut away from one group of characters and focus on others? How do we avoid doing it the same way every time? And so we discuss those stopping points and the starting points that follow them. We cover the flow of time and the flow of story. We talk about delivering satisfying installments. We even hang from a cliff or two. Meanwhile... This episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery by Tracy & Curtis Hickman, illustrated by Howard Tayler. Autograph editions are now on pre-order! Writing Prompt: Write a story in which Howard hates elephants and dramatically breaks one. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 5: How to Take Criticism
29 juni 2009 · 16 min
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 it. This episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, by Tracy and Curtis Hickman, and illustrated by Howard Tayler. Pre-orders for XDM open on Wednesday, July 1st. Writing Prompt: Write a story about a critic who is the hero. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 3: Stumping Howard at Conduit
22 juni 2009 · 21 min
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 were all good, and yes, according to the rules (of which I was not apprised, I should add in my defense) I got stumped one time. It was the question about making aliens seem alien. Go figure. Writing Prompt: Start with a device that vaporises water, ala Batman Begins, and turn it into a believable superweapon which is not being used to destroy the world. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 2: Keeping it Real with Aprilynne Pike
15 juni 2009 · 15 min
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 shortcuts and tricks we fall back on. This week's episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by editor Stacy L. Whitman and her World-Building in Middle Grade and Young Adult Speculative Fiction Seminar. The seminar will be held at the Provo Library in Provo, Utah from 1:00pm to 5:00pm on Saturday, June 27th, 2009. The deadline for registration is June 19th. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 4: Non Linear Story Telling
8 juni 2009 · 17 min
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 by Brandon Sanderson, now available in hardback from TOR. (If you're waiting for Episodes 2 and 3, we'll flash back to them in due time...) Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 1: World-Building History
1 juni 2009 · 16 min
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 doing is prose for the novel -- and how to avoid it while still knuckling down and doing the work. And then (after a shiny commercial break) we knuckle down and talk about writing history, making it interesting, finding conflict, and avoiding oversimplified causality ("monocausationalism.") Writing Prompt: Write an encyclopedia article about a war that has 5 distinct causes. Identify and justify each of them. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 33: How To Not Be Overwhelmed
25 mei 2009 · 15 min
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 computer listening to hours upon hours of advice. You're supposed to be writing. For this next fourteen minutes and forty-seven seconds we explain how to make that happen. Writing Prompt: Write a story about Brandon's friend Nameless Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 32: The Most Important Thing Dan Learned In The Last Year
18 mei 2009 · 15 min
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 writers are often expected to drop whatever they're doing in order to handle something for their publisher. During our discussion we mention a new local novelist Aprilynne Pike, whose debut book Wings is available now, and made #6 on the NYT Bestsellers List for Children's Chapter Books. Episode 32 has been brought to you by "A Snack." But hurry! We don't pause for long! Writing Prompt: Write the first page of a story, stop, write a first page of a different story and then go back and finish the first story. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 31: The Most Important Thing Brandon Learned In The Last Year
11 mei 2009 · 16 min
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 science can all be gimmicks. They're good to have, certainly, and they can work to sell the book, but real staying power (read: earning out your advance, and getting royalty checks for years to come) comes from good writing, page after page. Brandon confesses to some gimmick use himself, but fortunately we (and many of his readers) believe that his writing is strong enough that we don't begrudge him the gimmick one bit. This week's episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you again by the opportunity you have to sponsor Writing Excuses. Writing Prompt: An author comes up with a wacky, crazy gimmick for a book... and then it happens to the author in real life. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 30: The Most Important Thing Howard Learned In The Last Year
4 mei 2009 · 16 min
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 knowing this is important, and how others can go about learning these sorts of things about their own work. This week Writing Excuses is brought to you by "Bringing Writing Excuses To You By!" Writing Prompt: An artist finds a way to improve or perfect the form he or she is working within, and by so doing unlocks magic. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 29: How not to end your book
27 april 2009 · 17 min
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 to you by Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson, Book 3 of the Mistborn series now in paperback. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 28: Applying Critical Reading: “Watchmen”
20 april 2009 · 19 min
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 reading Watchmen for the first time (or seeing the movie), you probably ought to do that before you let us ruin it for you. Writing Prompt: Write an alternate history for 2009 taking stylistic cues from Watchmen. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 27: Reading Critically
13 april 2009 · 17 min
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. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 26: How Publishing is Changing in the new Century
6 april 2009 · 22 min
Nancy Fulda, assistant editor at Baen's Universe and editor-in-chief and founder of Anthology Builder, joins us again while Dan Wells is out celebrating his birthday. We discuss the rise of digital SF magazines, and touch on concepts like user-generated content, the Superconducting Copy Machine, and disruptive technology. We talk about print-on-demand vs. self-publishing, we laugh as Nancy puts her foot in her mouth, and then we argue over whether free online content can generate income for authors, as opposed to webcartoonists. This week's episode is 20 minutes long, because you're not in as much of a hurry as we originally suspected, and Nancy made us at least a little smarter. This week's Writing Excuses is brought to you by I Am Not A Serial Killer by our very own absent-two-weeks-running Dan Wells. The book is only available in the UK, but you can get now from http://www.bookdepository.co.uk which has free shipping to anywhere in the world. Writing Prompt: Write a story that convincingly describes the death of the traditional publishing industry 25 years from now. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Episode 632: Now that we’ve got time travel what do we do with it?
1 april 2009 · 1 min
This... THIS is why speculative fiction writers should never be trusted with actual technology. Lees meer
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Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 25: The Seven Deadly Sins of Slush Stories
30 maart 2009 · 17 min
Nancy Fulda fills in for Dan for this week's episode (he was sick, she was in town, huzzah!) but she's more than just "filling in." She's FEATURED. Nancy is the assistant editor for Jim Baen's Universe, and as such is probably the one who rejected your story. Nancy is also the editor-in-chief and founder of Anthology Builder, where you can create collections of short stories you want to read, and have them printed and bound for you. She tells us the sorts of things that will get you rejected, maybe after a page, maybe after a paragraph, and perhaps even before the very first line has been read. This week's episode is brought to you by Schlock Mercenary: The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance. Pre-orders are open now! Disclosure: Nancy is, in fact, Howard's sister-in-law. That might be why her stuff is getting so dang much relevant linkage in this entry. Writing Prompt: Write about a passionate egg. Lees meer
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