Alle afleveringen
1.012 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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17.5: The Promise of the Brand
31 januari 2022 · 24 min
Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd Your brand—your name, the cover art for your book, and even the typeface for the title—set expectations for the book's contents. That advice about not judging a book by its cover? It's lovely in theory, but in practice, that's just not how it works. In this episode we'll talk about how your brand gets defined, and how you can work with those elements to correctly set expectations regarding your work. Liner Notes: We've done several episodes about branding. 14.34 is particularly good. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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17.4: The Gun on the Mantel is Actually a Fish
24 januari 2022 · 21 min
Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd In the previous episode we discussed how to ensure that your surprise feels inevitable. In this episode we're covering how to make inevitability feel surprising. The title is a nod to the concept of the "red herring," which is arguably the most useful tool for setting up a good surprise. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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17.3: Chekov’s Surprising Yet Inevitable Inverted Gun
17 januari 2022 · 20 min
Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd This week we're talking about giving inevitability to our intended surprise, and we open with a discussion of Chekov's Gun, which, as a writing rule, is mostly used in inversion. Next week we'll focus on making inevitable things surprising. Liner Notes: Art and Editing of Suicide Squad (YouTube) Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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17.2: It Was a Promise of Three Parts
10 januari 2022 · 21 min
Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd The title of this episode comes to us from the first paragraph of The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss—a novel which delights us with turns of phrase and evocative prose from beginning to end. We're continuing our exploration of "promises as a structure" by looking at the promises made by the prose of your first line, first paragraph, and first page. What does your first line say about the rest of your book? Did you mean for it to say that? Is your first line writing checks that your later chapters can actually cash? Liner Notes: We did an eight-episode master class on first lines, pages, and paragraphs with DongWon Song. It begins with 16.27. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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17.1: Genre and Media are Promises
3 januari 2022 · 19 min
Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd The genre of your story is making promises to the reader, and the medium upon which your story is told makes promises too. In this episode we talk about the expectations set by various mediums and genres, and how we can leverage those to ensure that we deliver a satisfying story. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: The entirety of Season 11, The Elemental Genres, is a deep-dive on this stuff. Lees meer
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16.52: Structure is a Promise
27 december 2021 · 20 min
Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd The structure you're using for your story isn't just helping you organize your plotting. It's telling the audience what's going to happen. Story structures make promises to audiences, and these audience expectations are, in large measure, outside of our control. In this episode we talk about the expectations set by various story structures, and how we can make sure we use our structures to satisfy our audiences. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: We've done episodes on the M.I.C.E. Quotient, Seven Point Story Structure, The Hollywood Formula, and many, many more of the structures mentioned in this episode. We haven't done any on Kishōtenketsu, but we probably should! Lees meer
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16.51: Promises are a Structure
20 december 2021 · 21 min
Your Hosts: Howard Tayler, Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd Our next 8-episode intensive is all about promises and expectations. Our guest hosts are Kaela Rivera, Sandra Tayler, and Megan Lloyd. They're joining us to talk about how the promises we make to our audiences, and the expectations they bring with them, are a structural format. In this episode we introduce the topic, and talk about some apex examples of success and failure in this area. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: Here's the story of The Tropicana Packaging Redesign Failure Lees meer
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16.50: Worldbuilding Finale: Making Deliberate Choices
13 december 2021 · 19 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler Here at the end of our 8-episode intensive series on Worldbuilding we discuss stepping away from the defaults, the clichés, and the tropes, and choosing every element deliberately. There's nothing inherently wrong with the tropes. We're just suggesting that they be included only after deciding we actually want them. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.49: Magic and Technology: Two Sides of the Same Coin
6 december 2021 · 21 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler Magic and technology are tools that we, as writers, use to tell interesting stories, and they're very, very similar tools. In this episode we'll examine some ways in which both magical and technological elements can be used in our stories. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.48: Believable Worlds Part 2: Creating Texture
29 november 2021 · 18 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler As we do our worldbuilding with similarity, specificity, and selective depth (per the previous episode), we should take care to apply these things throughout our stories. In this episode we discuss how these elements we've world-built can become "textures." Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.47: Believable Worlds Part 1: The Illusion of Real
22 november 2021 · 19 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler Writers are illusionists, and worldbuilding requires no small mastery of that particular magic. In this episode we'll explore the creation of believable illusions through the techniques of similarity, specificity, and selective depth. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.46: World and Plot: The Only Constant is Change
15 november 2021 · 22 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler In our world, the ostensibly "real" one (simulation theory notwithstanding), stuff is changing all the time. Why, then, do we see so many fantasy worlds whose once-upon-a-times seem timeless? A more important question: how might we, as writers cognizant of the ubiquity of change, work that understanding into our writing? Can we make our fictional worlds more believable while retaining the elements of those worlds which first attracted us to them? Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: The book series Howard couldn't remember the name of? The HELLICONIA trilogy, by Brian W. Aldiss. Mary Robinette mentioned WX 14.30: Eating Your Way to Better Worldbuilding, which may make you hungry. Lees meer
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16.45: World and Character Part 2: Moral Frame
8 november 2021 · 19 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler Let's follow up on character biases with an exploration of moral frame. When we say someone is "morally gray" or "morally ambiguous," what we're really talking about is the way they fit into the moral frame defined by society. In this episode we talk about that frame, and how we can apply it, through our characters, to our worldbuilding. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.44: World and Character Part 1: All Your Characters Are Biased
31 oktober 2021 · 17 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler The world of your book is most often shown to us through the eyes of the characters who live in that world. In this episode we discuss the fact that those characters have biases which will distort the reader's perception of the world. Knowing this, we can use it to our advantage. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.43: The Narrative Holy Trinity of World, Character, and Plot, with Fonda Lee
25 oktober 2021 · 21 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, Fonda Lee, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Howard Tayler We're beginning another master class, another deep dive series of episodes, and this time around we'll be led into the realms of good worldbuilding by Fonda Lee. In this episode Fonda talks about her process, which includes plotting and character creation along with the worldbuilding. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.42: M.I.C.E. Quotient, After the Fact
18 oktober 2021 · 18 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal Our eighth and final M.I.C.E. Quotient discussion will explore using M.I.C.E. as a diagnostic tool. So... your manuscript is done, but something isn't working. How do you figure out where the problem is? If the ending isn't satisfying, M.I.C.E. can tell you whether the ending itself is actually at fault, and in this episode we'll show you how. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.41: Middles and Conflicts with M.I.C.E. Structure
11 oktober 2021 · 22 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal With the M.I.C.E. elements (Milieu, Inquiry, Character, and Event) explained, and the concept of nesting, or braiding the M.I.C.E. threads, we're ready to dive into that most difficult part of the story: the middle. Enough of us dread (or at least struggle with) middle-of-story writing that the promise of a structural tool to make it easier is kind of glorious. Our seventh installment in M.I.C.E. Quotient discussions talks about how to use M.I.C.E. elements to inform try-fail cycles, ask/answer sequences, and conflicts in general. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.40: Nesting Threads in the M.I.C.E. Quotient
4 oktober 2021 · 19 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal Now that we've drilled down into each of the M.I.C.E. elements (Milieu, Inquiry, Character, and Event) it's time to explore nesting them. This sixth installment in our M.I.C.E. Quotient series focuses on the "FILO" (first-in, last-out) or "nested parentheses" method for symmetrically creating a story using M.I.C.E. elements. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.39: Deep Dive into “Event”
27 september 2021 · 20 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal Our fifth M.I.C.E. Quotient episode focuses on the “Event” element, and explores how to use disruption of the status quo as the driving element for story. From plumbing problems to alien invasions, event stories are often structured by telling how difficult it is to return to normal, whether you're getting the aliens off the planet, or the water back into the pipes. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.38: Deep Dive into “Character”
20 september 2021 · 19 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal Our fourth M.I.C.E. Quotient episode explores the “Character” element, and how these angsty, navel-gazing voyages of self-examination can serve either as complete stories or as elements in other stories. Also, we talk about how to do this in ways that don't result in readers complaining about "navel-gazing" or "angsty." Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.37: Deep Dive Into “Inquiry”
13 september 2021 · 22 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal Our third M.I.C.E. Quotient episode asks about the "Inquiry" element, and the ways in which we can use this element to structure our stories—whether we're writing murder mysteries, thrillers, or anything else in which the turning of pages asks and eventually answers questions. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.36: Deep Dive into “Milieu”
6 september 2021 · 20 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal The M.I.C.E. Quotient is an organizational tool which categorizes story elements as Milieu, Inquiry, Character, or Event. In this second episode we cover "Milieu," and how stories can be driven by a sense of place. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.35: What is the M.I.C.E. Quotient?
30 augustus 2021 · 22 min
Your Hosts: Dan Wells, C.L. Polk, Charlotte Forfieh, and Mary Robinette Kowal The next eight episodes are a deep dive into the M.I.C.E. Quotient, so we'll begin with a definition. M.I.C.E. is an organizational tool which categorizes story elements as Milieu, Inquiry, Character, or Event. It helps authors know which elements are in play, and how to work with these elements effectively. Obviously there's a lot more to M.I.C.E. than that, and in this episode we'll lay it out in a way that makes the subsequent seven M.I.C.E.-related episodes much easier to navigate. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.34: Novels Are Layer Cakes
23 augustus 2021 · 20 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Novels deliver a lot of information, and it's helpful to consider that delivery in terms of layers. Novels are layer cakes, and we're not talking about a three-layer birthday cake. We're talking about a dobosh torte, or a mille crepe cake. And if we've made you hungry for stratified pastry, that's okay, because we made ourselves hungry, too. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.33: Tell, Don’t Show
16 augustus 2021 · 19 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Few pieces of writing advice get repeated as much as that old saw "show, don't tell." We're here to show tell you that it's not only not universally applicable, much of the time it's wrong¹. Tell, don't show, especially in the early pages of the book when so very, very much information needs to be delivered² quickly. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson ¹ Fun fact: this advice comes to us from silent film, when it made great artistic sense to put things on screen rather than on title cards. ² If you need new terminology, Dan uses "demonstration vs. description." Lees meer
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16.32: First Page Fundamentals—THE KILLING FLOOR, by Lee Childs
9 augustus 2021 · 21 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode we explore the first page of The Killing Floor, by Lee Childs, with the goal of learning how to build good first pages for own own work. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: here is the 1st paragraph of The Killing Floor, for reference. I was arrested in Eno's diner. At twelve o'clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain. All the way from the highway to the edge of town. The diner was small, but bright and clean. Brand-new, built to resemble a converted railroad car. Narrow, with a long lunch counter on one side and a kitchen bumped out back. Booths lining the opposite wall. A doorway where the center booth would be. I was in a booth, at a window, reading somebody’s abandoned newspaper about the campaign for a president I didn’t vote for last time and wasn’t going to vote for this time. Outside, the rain had stopped but the glass was still pebbled with bright drops. I saw the police cruisers pull into the gravel lot. They were moving fast and crunched to a stop. Light bars flashing and popping. Red and blue light in the raindrops on my window. Doors burst open, policemen jumped out. Two from each car, weapons ready. Two revolvers, two shotguns. This was heavy stuff. One revolver and one shotgun ran to the back. One of each rushed the door. Lees meer
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16.31: First Page Fundamentals—MOBY DICK
2 augustus 2021 · 21 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode we explore the first page of Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, with the goal of learning how to build good first pages for own own work. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: here is the 1st paragraph of Moby Dick, for reference. Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time tozz get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. Lees meer
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16.30: First Page Fundamentals—THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
26 juli 2021 · 22 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler In this episode we explore the first page of The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson, with the goal of learning how to build good first pages for own own work. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: here is the 1st paragraph of The Haunting of Hill House, for reference. No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone. Lees meer
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16.29: Building Trust
19 juli 2021 · 17 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler How do we build trust with our readers? What does that even mean? In this episode we discuss ways in which we let our readers know what they can expect from the book they're holding, and how we set about getting the to trust us do deliver on those expectations. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.28: Common First-Page Mistakes
12 juli 2021 · 18 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Let's have a frank, and possibly painful discussion about the ways in which the first page can go wrong. It may seem like hackneyed writing advice, but rules like "don't start with the main character waking up" are rules for a reason. In this episode we'll talk about those reasons, and why it's so unlikely for books which break them to succeed with readers. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.27: Nobody Wants to Read a Book
5 juli 2021 · 19 min
Your Hosts: DongWon Song, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler Our controversial episode title comes to us via John Schwarzwelder, and it points up nicely the importance of today's topic, which is first lines, first pages, and how we set about convincing people (who may or may not want to read a book) to read OUR book. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.26: Working With Teams
28 juni 2021 · 22 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Cassandra Khaw, Dan Wells, James L. Sutter, and Howard Tayler Our series of game writing episodes draws to a close with a discussion about working with teams. This last skill set, these ways in which you learn to excel at collaborative projects, is often far more important than any of your other skills. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.25: Breaking Into Game Writing
21 juni 2021 · 28 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Cassandra Khaw, Dan Wells, James L. Sutter, and Howard Tayler So, after all this talk about designing games and writing for games, it's time to address the big question: how does one go about getting a game-design/game-writing job? It's a competitive field, and there are no easy answers, but we do have some hard answers for you. And some homework... Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.24: Worldbuilding for Games
14 juni 2021 · 21 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Cassandra Khaw, Dan Wells, James L. Sutter, and Howard Tayler Worldbuilding is one of our favorite topics, and it's a domain in which game design and novel writing share a lot of territory. In this episode we talk about how much we love it, and how much we enjoy letting other people love it enough to do the heavy lifting for us. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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BONUS EPISODE! 2021 WXR Early-Bird Announcement
10 juni 2021 · 21 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dongwon, and Dan Lees meer
What's this bonus episode thing?
Well, for starters IT'S URGENT, because as of this writing you have just ten more days to get the promised pricing for WXR at sea in 2021.
What ELSE is it? Well, this bonus episode describes the difference between workshops, retreats, and master classes. If you've attended WXR in the past, this episode will highlight what's different this time around.
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16.23: Rules and Mechanics
7 juni 2021 · 21 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Cassandra Khaw, Dan Wells, James L. Sutter, and Howard Tayler Let's talk about how players interact with the mechanics of the game, and what kinds of requirements those might put on the writers. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.22: Scenes and Set Pieces
31 mei 2021 · 25 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, Cassandra Khaw, Dan Wells, James L. Sutter, and Howard Tayler Let's have a discussion about scenes and set pieces, and let's lead with this: prose writers often create longer pieces using scenes as building blocks, and in this thing writing for game design is very, very similar. Scenes and set pieces are some of the most critical components in game design, and each of them must deliver several different things to the players in order to work well. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.21: Player Characters
24 mei 2021 · 19 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, James L. Sutter, Dan Wells, Cassandra Khaw, and Howard Tayler So, you're the hero of your own story, and the hero gets choices, and in many ways directs the story. In our discussion of interactive fiction and writing for games, the subject of "player characters" is essential. From the array of options given at character creation/selection, to the paths available for character development and the final chapters of that characters story, "player character" touches everything. Credits: this episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.20: Branching Narratives
17 mei 2021 · 20 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, James L. Sutter, Dan Wells, Cassandra Khaw, and Howard Tayler How do you give players meaningful choices while still keeping the story within a reasonable set of boundaries? In this episode James and Cassandra lead us in a discussion of branching narratives, and the ways in which we as writers can create them. Credits: this episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Liner Notes: Dan mentioned this collection of "Choose your own adventure" plot maps. Howard illustrated the concept of "narrative bumper pool" in Tracy Hickman's X-TREME DUNGEON MASTERY Narrative Bumper Pool from X-TREME DUNGEON MASTERY, used with permission Lees meer
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16.19: Intro to Roleplaying Games
10 mei 2021 · 27 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette Kowal, James L. Sutter, Dan Wells, Cassandra Khaw, and Howard Tayler For the next eight episodes we'll be talking about roleplaying games, and how that medium relates to writers, writing, career opportunities, and more. We're led by James L. Sutter and Cassandra Khaw on this particular quest. In this episode we lay some groundwork, define a few terms, and hopefully get you excited about looking at games in new and useful ways. Credits: this episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.18: Poetry and the Fantastic
3 mei 2021 · 25 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard For the last seven episodes we've explored language, meaning, and their overlap with that thing we mean when we use language to say "poetry." In this episode we step back to some origins, including, at a meta-level, the origins of this podcast as a writer-focused exploration of genre fiction—the speculative, the horrific, the science-y, and the fantastic. Because there is an overlap between language and meaning, and there are myriad overlaps among the genres we love, and as we step back we see poetry striding these spaces, its path in part defining and in part defying the various borders. Poetry, scouting the fraught borders between the kingdoms of Meaning and Language. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson. Lees meer
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16.17: The Time To Rhyme
26 april 2021 · 24 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard Rhyming is powerful. It can signal a form, or telegraph whimsy. It can be predictable, surprising, and sometimes both. It may also be seen as childish. When, then, is it time to rhyme? Will rhyming "internally" fit? As opposed to a line-ending bit. For answers, just listen. But rhymes will be missin' Especially where they'd deliver a predictably naughty word at the end of, say, a limerick, because in this context, that would definitely be seen as childish. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson. Lees meer
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16.16: Poetic Structure: Part II
18 april 2021 · 28 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard How does a poem happen? Absent an external structure, what makes a thing a poem? The key word in that question may be "external," because ultimately the poem on the page will be the implicit definition of its own structure—even if it borrows a "non-poetic" structure from another form. Structure is as structure does. "Unstructured" is just a way to say "I am unfamiliar with this structure," or maybe "I don't believe that this structure is fit for poetry." And that might be a thing you are currently saying. After all, "blog post describing a podcast episode" is definitely a structure. Does the embracing of that structure make this thing into a poem? If this thing is a poem, how did that happen? Liner Notes: "Girl Hours" by Sofia Samatar (via Stone Telling magazine), "The Hill We Climb," by Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman (YouTube from the Biden/Harris Inauguration) Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, Jr., and mastered by Alex Jackson. Lees meer
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16.15: Poetic Structure, Part I
12 april 2021 · 18 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard Rigorous structure in poetic form is commonly pointed at when we declare Poems have meters and rhymes, as the norm. Yet words without patterns can roar like a storm So why pay attention, why study with care Rigorous structure in poetic form? Just set it aside, surrender the gorm (means "alertness", a quite-handy rhyme I put there) Poems have meters and rhymes as the norm. Let some of it go, perhaps. Let it transform beyond all the rhyming. Deny, if you dare: Rigorous structure in poetic form Okay, you can maybe keep some of it warm Those toasty iambics by which you might swear: Poems have meters and rhymes as the norm. This episode text I wrote: does it inform? Will all be confused when this couplet doth air? "Rigorous structure in poetic form: Poems have meters and rhymes as the norm." Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson. The villanelle above was the first—and hopefully last—ever composed by Howard Tayler. Yes, the Writing Excuses tagline is a haiku. No, Howard did not know that when he wrote it in 2008. Lees meer
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16.14: Poetic Language
5 april 2021 · 21 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard We might begin with description. Or we might begin by deconstructing the act of describing. Wait. No, not there. Let's jump in AFTER the deconstruction. Let's leap beyond a statement of topic, let's hurdle clear of mundane declarations of the audio file's length, and together plunge headlong into metaphor, the icy water perhaps calling to mind Archimedes, as we describe our episode (or any other thing) not in terms of its intrinsic attributes, but by taking account of what it has displaced into the spaces it doesn't occupy. How long does the displacement remain? How might one apply paint to the emptiness after the thing has left? What color is silence that follows the end of the episode? (An end which follows twenty minutes and thirty-three seconds in which the four of us discuss the kinds of words we imagine when we say "poetic language.") Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.13: Day Brain vs. Night Brain
29 maart 2021 · 20 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard Patterns in the way we're speaking may betray which 'brain' we're using; often bound by what's familiar, sometimes loosed for free-er choosing. Writing like the day-brain's thinking Singing while the night-brain's winking All the cadence going funky (golden-mantled howler monkey) Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson. XKCD #1412, by Randall Munroe, was referenced during this episode. As was the Greater Cleveland Film Commission. Lees meer
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16.12 : Singing Versus Speaking
21 maart 2021 · 19 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard Can you hear your writing sing, being intoned instead of read? With the dialogs as tunes whose tags say "sung" instead of "said?" When the rhythm of your prose echoes the rhythm of a song you'll see perhaps you've been a poet all along. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson. Les Miserables was written by Victor Hugo, set to music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, and ruined here by Howard Tayler. Lees meer
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16.11: What is Poetry?
14 maart 2021 · 19 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard This is how we begin our master class on poetry, with Amal El-Mohtar: With not one question, but two. What is poetry? What is prose? Yes, both questions are a trap. Or maybe two traps. But definitely a beginning. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.10: Paying it Forward, with Kevin J. Anderson
8 maart 2021 · 28 min
Your Hosts: Mary Robinette, Dan, Amal, and Howard, with special guest Kevin J. Anderson Kevin J. Anderson joins us to talk about how others have helped us in our careers, and how we might continue that tradition and help others. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson Lees meer
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16.9: Crossing The Revenue Streams
1 maart 2021 · 22 min
Your Hosts: Dan, Erin, Brandon, and Howard How many different ways can our writing earn money for us? What additional work, besides "just" writing, do we need to do in order to get that money? In this episode we discuss finding and managing multiple revenue streams, whether that means writing for new audiences, or monetizing existing writing in new ways. Credits: This episode was recorded by Marshall Carr, and mastered by Alex Jackson. Lees meer
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