Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.
Howard, Dan, and guest Bob Defendi open this episode with some high literary humor. Bob fills in for Brandon as we discuss formulas writers use in crafting stories. But how do we prevent those stories from feeling formulaic? Can the formulas themselves help? We discuss (at a high level) the…
Episode 6, recorded live at Dragon’s Keep opens with monkey noises and greeting-card pith, and ends with… well, we’ll just let you listen. Is it a storybook ending? What IS a storybook ending? What is a whiz-bang ending? Is the ending the ending, or is the ending followed by a…
The halfway point: by the end of today you should have 25,000 words. How are you doing? Are you ahead? Behind? Are you completely and utterly delighted by the exciting world of writing, and you want to do it more and more every day for the rest of your life?…
So you’ve got a fantastic idea for a book or a short story, but where do you go from there? Who can give the incentive to write, the support to keep going when it gets hard, and the tough love to let you know when it sucks? The answer: a…
We’ve had just over a week of work: how’s it going? Week two is a lot harder than week 1, and might actually be the hardest of all, because the fun stuff is over and the work has begun, and you’re still thousands of words away from finishing. Tell us…
Writing Excuses has donated an ad to the Whitney Awards, a program designed to recognize and support Mormon writers. That ad is now for sale on ebay: the winner will get an ad in an upcoming podcast heard by fives of thousands of people. If you want to advertise your…
Eric James Stone joins us for our final Mountain-Con episode. This Q&A covers writing part-time (and Dan disqualifies himself from answering this question in future episodes), setting deadlines for yourself, writing plot twists, and providing character description within that character’s viewpoint. Powered by RedCircle
November 1 is the first day of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The basic idea is to write an entire novel of 50,000 words or more completely during the month of November. It’s a fantastic program, a great way to get yourself writing, and comes with a vast, ready-made…
