Season 08 – Writing Excuses: Recent Episodes
Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler
Mette Ivie Harrison joins us to talk about the reasons you think you don't have time to write.
Mette Ivie Harrison joins us to discuss creative non-fiction, the genre in which the tools of creative writing are applied to factually accurate narratives.
Mercedes Lackey joins Brandon, Mary, and Howard to field listener questions at GenCon Indy.
Sam Logan of "Sam and Fuzzy" talks long-form storytelling with Brandon, Mary, and Howard
Scott Lynch, author of The Republic of Thieves, joins Brandon, Howard, and Mary before a live audience at GenCon Indy to talk about roguishness. Why do we like rogues? What can a roguish character accomplish in terms of story purposes? Can the rogue accomplish things a more classically moral character cannot? Most importantly, what do authors … Continue reading Writing Excuses 8.47: Roguishness with Scott Lynch →
Aeryn Rudel from Privateer Press and Skull Island X joins us at GenCon Indy to talk about editing.
Tom Doherty, president and founder of Tor books, joins us at GenCon to talk publishing.
Microcasting... it's what we call Q&A. Beta readers, IP issues, discovery writing, chapter length, and more.
Cherie Priest joins the cast for a discussion of dystopian fiction before a live audience.
The cast talks about self publishing, our early career difficulties, Easter Eggs, and more...
How do you respond to bad reviews, publisher errors, or other possible "career fail" situations?
How do you go about transitioning characters in relative prominence during a series of books?
Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content joins us to talk about discovery writing, and how he digs himself out of holes when he writes himself into them.
The cast talks about their survivorship bias, and how to pay attention to that bias so that listeners can extract advice from us that might actually work for you
The cast talks about making dialogue, blocking, and description work together for exposition and story-telling.
The cast discusses how to make reluctant, non-proactive, non-go-getting characters interesting to read about.
The cast answers questions about publishing, formatting, process, and the Evil Nemesis John Scalzi.
The team talks about contracts, and what you as an author staring at a contract should be considering.
How do we break our books into chapters, and how to we build those chapters to begin with?
E.J. Patten joins us again, this to discuss the particulars of writing middle-grade fiction.
Mary walks Brandon, Dan, and Howard through the processes for writing "Kiss Me Twice," her Hugo-nominated novella
Brandon, Dan, Mary, Howard, and guest E.J. Patten answer a slew of questions about writing and the business of writing.
E.J. Patten joins us to talk about pre-writing -- all that work that gets done before the prose happens.
Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard loved "The Avengers," and would like to tell you what they think the film did right.
Writing Excuses tackles water from the perspective of the fish. Also? The culture surrounding writers.
The Writing Excuses Crew fields questions about crossed genres, literary fiction, magical realism, and more.
Mary, Dan, and Howard help Brandon brainstorm a story, this time featuring psychic birds.
We begin with an audio glitch and a jumbling of our usual intro. Why? Because it breaks rhythm, and sometimes you may actually want to do that. Narrative rhythm is the pattern of story elements and associated structures that help drive the reader’s pace through a book. Consciously managed, narrative rhythm is a a critical … Continue reading Writing Excuses 8.15: Narrative Rhythm →
Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard brainstorm a science-fiction short story featuring artificial intelligence
Robison Wells joins Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard to talk about health -- especially the mental kind.
Why would you retell a story that has already been told? Now, how would you go about doing it well?
They're not rules, they're guidelines. Right? Let's talk about breaking "rules" of writing.
How do you give a personality to the animal or animals in your story? How do you do it without being a crazy cat lady?
We're back for the New Year, and we start by answering all your questions. Or at least eight of them.