Recorded live at Dragons & Fairy Tales in Eagle Mountain, Utah, this episode features the work of several brave souls who submitted their first paragraphs to us for critique.

We are not American Idol — we’re not out to rip these to shreds. We offer constructive criticism, highlight the good we find, and point out where improvements could be employed.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett, which Howard loves because of the risks the author took.

Writing Prompt: You’re writing in your journal for the first time in ten years, and the last ten years included the invasion of Earth.

That Thunder You Can Barely Hear: It was really, really loud. And funny.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.

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 Writing Excuses 4.32: First Paragraphs [20:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (7469)

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!

 

 Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 8: What Star Trek did Correct [20:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9494)

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.

 

 Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 5: How to Take Criticism [16:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9114)