Writing Excuses

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13.4: Protagonists Who Aren’t Sympathetic Jan 28, 2018

Show notes

Your Hosts: Brandon, Valynne, Dan, and Howard This week we're joined by Valynne Maetani, who'll be one of our hosts all year. We're discussing protagonists who, per writer intent, do not engender audience sympathy. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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13.3: What Writers Get Wrong, with Aliette de Bodard Jan 21, 2018

Show notes

Your Hosts: Dan, Mary, Aliette, and Howard This year's third-week episodes will all follow a common theme: "what writers get wrong." Each of these episodes will feature an expert guest who will help us understand what writers get wrong about something in which they have expertise. Aliette de Bodard will be co-hosting several of these week-three episodes, but this week her role is "subject matter expert." She has several fields of expertise, and among the hats she expertly wears which writers often fail to correctly describe is a hat labeled "motherhood" (note: not an actual hat.) Credits: This episode was recorded at WXR 2017 in the Baltic Sea by Bert Grimm, and mastered on dry land by Alex Jackson

13.2: Writing Active Characters Jan 14, 2018

Show notes

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Amal, and Maurice This week we welcome Amal El-Mohtar and Maurice Broaddus to the Writing Excuses cast for a discussion of active characters. We cover characters who move stories forward, who make decisions that influence plot-critical events, and whose actions draw the reader into the book. Liner Notes: you'll be hearing from Amal and Maurice during the second week of each month of 2018. And if Maurice sounds familiar, he joined us at GenCon for episode 7.40 back in 2012. Credits: This episode was recorded by Andrew Twiss, and mastered by Alex Jackson, and despite the fact that both Andrew and Alex are very active characters we never give them any dialog.

13.1: Hero, Protagonist, Main Character Jan 07, 2018

Show notes

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard 2018 is our Year of Character, and we kick it off with a quick exploration of the differences between heroes, protagonists, and main characters. Beginning with addressing the question "wait, aren't they all the same person?" Because that's the elephant in the room. Or maybe it's three elephants. Or two. Sometimes there's no elephant, and if you look carefully you can see an elephant-shaped hole, which is probably more like a negative number of elephants. Liner Notes: We referenced The Hollywood Formula, which was introduced to us by Lou Anders in Episode 6.18. We also keep saying "protag" as a verb, which to us means "doing proactive protagonist things." Howard may have made up this word, but its true provenance has been lost to the mists of anxiety of influence. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson. For audio quality purposes the studio contained zero elephants.

12.53: Writing Excuses True Confessions Dec 31, 2017

Show notes

It's the end of 2017, so let's talk about the things that we've tried to make work, and failed at. Not things that we tried before arriving at career-level measures of success—things that we've folded, spindled, and/or mutilated since then. There were a lot of them! This episode runs close to thirty minutes long...

12.52: Cross-Genres as Gateways Dec 24, 2017

Show notes

Your Hosts: Brandon, Piper, Howard, and Dan What are the books which have drawn us from the bookshelf genres where you're the most comfortable into bookshelves you haven't read from? What can we learn about our own writing by reading these gateway books? How can we set about writing them ourselves? Credits: this episode was recorded in Cosmere House Studios by Dan Dan the Audioman Thompson, and mastered at the intersection of Cowboys and the Great Lakes by Alex Jackson

12.51: Constructed Languages, with Dirk Elzinga Dec 17, 2017

Show notes

Your Hosts: Howard, Mary, Dan, with guest host Beth Meacham Dirk Elzinga, an associate professor of linguistics, joined us live at LTUE to talk about constructed languages, and how we, as writers, might go about constructing them for our work. Liner Notes: The big stack of notes from Dirk required its own page. Below are links to specific tools mentioned during the episode. Duolingo Everchanging Book of Names Credits: This episode was recorded live at LTUE by Dan Dan the Audioman Thompson and mastered beneath a pyramid of stone tablet encyclopedias by Alex Jackson.

12.50: Form and Function Dec 10, 2017

Show notes

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley How does the shape of your physical medium change the art you're making? What are the tools that affect our storytelling, and what are those effects? Credits: This episode was recorded in Chicago by Andrew Twiss, and mastered by Alex Jackson

12.49: Non-linear Narratives Dec 03, 2017

Show notes

We begin the final month of our year on structure with a discussion of non-linear structures. These include flashbacks, POVs that are out of chronological order, and a host of other storytelling techniques. Credits: this episode was recorded in Cosmere House Studios by Dan Dan the Audioman Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

12.48: Q&A on Novels and Series, with Brian McClellan Nov 26, 2017

Show notes

Brian McClellan joined us to field questions about writing novels and series. Here are the questions: How do you write an ending that is open for sequels, but isn't a cliffhanger? Is it a good idea to take a large novel, and release it instead as serial novellas? Can you debut with a series, or should you establish yourself with standalone novels first? How do you keep readers coming back for each new novel when there's a long time between them? Should you have more than just one book done before querying agents? What do you do if your novel turns out to be too short to be a novel? Is it possible to write a series as a discovery writer? How do you foreshadow big things that are a long way out?

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