Beowulf didn’t kill Grendel on a day trip, Luke didn’t overthrow Emperor Palpatine in just one season, and here at Writing Excuses, we didn’t get around to properly discussing the Hero’s Journey until we were well into the second decade of this century.

Sorry about that.

The Campbellian Monomyth, as defined in Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces, is a system of comparative mythology that, for better or for worse, gets used a lot by writers. We talk about some of our favorite examples, and immediately begin arguing over terms. Hopefully this is delightful to you, and educational for everyone. Especially since the monomyth is not a checklist, and it should not be taken that way.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: At the time we recorded this, Hero With a Thousand Faces was available on Audible. It’s not anymore. So… go find something else educational?

Writing Prompt: Take Goldilocks and the Three Bears, apply the Campbellian Monomyth, and give us a short story.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.

*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

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* Get your first 30 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one credit. In almost all cases, one credit equals one audiobook. After your 30 day trial, your membership will automatically renew each month for just $14.95, billed to the credit card you used when you registered with Audible. With your membership, you will receive one credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. If you cancel your membership before your free trial period is up, you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. See the complete terms and policy applicable to Audible memberships.

Writing Excuses 8.2: Hero's Journey [ 17:06 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (27182)

And now, for the very last episode of Season 7, we shall chance taking a look forward. Is this prognostication, or reckless abandon? Neither! We get asked a lot about how the industry is changing, and how we’re adjusting to what we see happening. This isn’t us predicting the future: this is us interpreting what we’re seeing, and then describing how we plan to react.

• Mary suggests that we’re seeing a swing from Fantasy to Science Fiction as the dominant speculative genre, and but she doesn’t plan to start writing nothing but sci-fi as a result.
• Dan calls out a trend towards supplemental materials — shorts that tie in to flagship novels. He’s already taking part in this, and plans to keep doing it.
• Howard hits the hot-button of “e-publishing,” and calls it “shortening the value chain.” He’s been making a living with it since it was basically brand-new, but he plans to continue to exploit the disruptions it creates — sometimes by lengthening the value chain.
• Brandon sees increasing pressures for authors to promote themselves, (largely the result of exceptional cases of authors with good platforms), but suggests that the time can still be better spent writing more books.

And that’s it for us until 2013! We’ll be back next year with Season 8, and you’ll only have to wait a week for it to start airing.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Last Light of the Sun, by Guy Gavriel Kay, narrated by Holter Graham

Writing Prompt: Figure out what you would like the future of writing to look like. Now write a story about how we get there.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.

*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible® Free Trial Details
* Get your first 30 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one credit. In almost all cases, one credit equals one audiobook. After your 30 day trial, your membership will automatically renew each month for just $14.95, billed to the credit card you used when you registered with Audible. With your membership, you will receive one credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. If you cancel your membership before your free trial period is up, you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. See the complete terms and policy applicable to Audible memberships.

Writing Excuses 7.54: Four Ways the Industry is Changing [ 19:04 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (20154)

James L Sutter  joins us before a live audience at GenCon Indy for a discussion of tie-in fiction. James is a writer and editor, and is one of the co-creators of the Pathfinder system. He is the author of Pathfinder Tales: Death’s Heretic and is the editor in charge of all of Paizo’s Pathfinder fiction.

James leads by telling us that if you want to write for Pathfinder, the first thing you need to do is write something for somebody else. As the editor of that division at Paizo, he’s the gatekeeper, and that’s the first hurdle you need to clear. He also talks to us about what he’s looking for in an author.

We talk at length about the Pathfinder line, its genesis, and James’s mission with Paizo regarding the tie-in fiction. He tells us about the things that turn him off in a submitted manuscript, and what sorts of work he does with his writers to help make the tie-in fiction actually, you know, tie in.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Railsea, by China Mieville, narrated by Jonathan Crowley

Writing Prompt: Write a story in which all the characters are simultaneously the good guy AND the bad guy.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.

*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible® Free Trial Details
* Get your first 30 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one credit. In almost all cases, one credit equals one audiobook. After your 30 day trial, your membership will automatically renew each month for just $14.95, billed to the credit card you used when you registered with Audible. With your membership, you will receive one credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. If you cancel your membership before your free trial period is up, you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. See the complete terms and policy applicable to Audible memberships.

Writing Excuses 7.43: Editing with James L Sutter [ 16:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (16454)

Fans of role-playing games should know the name Monte Cook well, because he’s been writing some of the highest-profile tomes in the field for two-and-a-half decades now. Monte joins us in front of a live audience at GenCon Indy 2012 to talk about writing games.

We start by talking about some of the differences between straight-up prose, and prose tooled for games. With role-playing games, this often boils down to the fact that it’s not the writer doing the storytelling — it’s the role-players. The writer’s job is to provide the gamers with the tools they need. Monte and the hosts cover the roles of world-building, character development, and plotting, and talk a little about the path you might consider if you’re looking to get published in this field.

If you’re ready to relinquish story control to your readers, if you are prepared to let them breathe life into the places, monsters, and characters you’ve created, this is the episode for you.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon, narrated by David Colacci

Writing Prompt: For some reason one character is put into the body of another character.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.

*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible® Free Trial Details
* Get your first 30 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one credit. In almost all cases, one credit equals one audiobook. After your 30 day trial, your membership will automatically renew each month for just $14.95, billed to the credit card you used when you registered with Audible. With your membership, you will receive one credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. If you cancel your membership before your free trial period is up, you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. See the complete terms and policy applicable to Audible memberships.

Writing Excuses 7.36: Writing Gaming Fiction with Monte Cook [ 17:45 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (19604)

Microcasting! Again!! Now with exclamation points!!! You’ll have to have a listen for our answers, but here are the questions:

• How do you deal with bad reviews?
• How do you apply Brandon’s magic system rules to science fiction?
• Dan, will you do the marshmallow voice for us again?
• How do you keep tension high without exhausting the reader?
• You’ve made your manuscript as good as you know how to. Now you need to make it even better, based on feedback. What do you do?
• Any tips on creating suspension of disbelief?
• How do you deal with annoying fans?

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones, narrated by Jenny Sterlin.

Writing Prompt: The story of the writer and her VERY ENTHUSIASTIC alien fan who is impossible to escape.

“Oddly, no. Sometimes you guys are dull.” 5:22, Mary Robinette Kowal.

Mary’s Shmoozing 101 Link: Right here.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.

*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible® Free Trial Details
* Get your first 30 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one credit. In almost all cases, one credit equals one audiobook. After your 30 day trial, your membership will automatically renew each month for just $14.95, billed to the credit card you used when you registered with Audible. With your membership, you will receive one credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. If you cancel your membership before your free trial period is up, you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. See the complete terms and policy applicable to Audible memberships.

Writing Excuses 7.30: Micocasting...Again! [ 19:06 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (20509)

We begin with a definition of Historical Fantasy that allows us narrow the topic and differentiate it from Alternate History. When we say historical fantasy we mean “adding magic to a historical period we want to write in.” We offer some examples of this, talk about why it’s popular right now, and then talk about how you as a writer can do this well.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: His Majesty’s Dragon: Temeraire, Book 1, by Naomi Novik, narrated by Simon Vance.

Writing Prompt: Identify a historical period that you like, and write a story in that setting. Don’t bother researching anything until you’re done.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible. Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.

*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible® Free Trial Details Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation.

Writing Excuses 7.7: Historical Fantasy [ 18:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (18865)

Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman from the Interstitial Arts Foundation join Mary and Dan at World Fantasy to discuss things that fall into the gaps between the genres.

How do publishers, agents, and booksellers deal with titles that are speculative, but that cannot be easily categorized as science fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal romance, steampunk, or one of the other readily shelvable genres? And how should authors approach writing such titles?

(We apologize for Dan’s low volume — neither Producer Jordo nor Howard were present to play engineer and catch the fact that Dan’s track wasn’t capturing any actual audio. Jordo did what he could to bump Dan’s volume up after the fact.)

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint, narrated by the author along with a full voice cast and with additional cool soundscapes, is one of the Neil Gaiman Presents titles on Audible.

Writing Prompt: Try to write something that doesn’t fit neatly into the genres you’re familiar with.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.
Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.
*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible® Free Trial Details
Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation.

Writing Excuses 6.28: Interstitial Art [ 19:55 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (15856)

It’s the Writing Excuses Fantasy Setting Yard Sale!

In this experimental (at least for us) ‘cast, Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard build a couple of fantasy settings for you, and they’re free. Seriously. TAKE THEM.

We start our world-building with an unusual way for someone to obtain magical powers. We ended up with space-dust. We then head into what these powers do, and again we look for something unusual. We picked mutation. Then we start applying limitations: astrological, alchemical, and geological.

Our second pass (we’re giving away more than one of these!) began with cultural elements. We toy with how political power is granted, and end up with some neat linguistic bits, puerile humor, dance steps, ambidexterity, and a callback to the earlier puerility.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Alloy of Law: A Mistborn Novel, by Brandon Sanderson, narrated by Michael Kramer

Writing Prompt: This whole episode is one big writing prompt, and you need one because NaNoWriMo is over, but that’s no excuse to not write. You’re out of excuses, as we’ve told you on more than one occasion. Write!

Puerility: “Fart joke.”

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.
Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.
*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible® Free Trial Details
Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation.

Writing Excuses 6.27: Fantasy Setting Yard Sale [ 17:21 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (18728)

Keffy Kehrli joins Brandon, Mary, and Howard in front of a live audience at WorldCon 69 in Reno. He’s a Writers of the Future winner, a few votes short of being a Campbell Award nominee, and a female-to-male transsexual.

Mary leads us into this discussion, starting with how gender roles and gender identity lie along a continuum, defying the convenient descriptors that people typically employ, and how this can inform our writing. Keffy offers valuable tips, talking about what gets done wrong, and how to write it correctly.

We also talk about how this can apply to world-building, especially in fantasy where extended gender identities usually are not a consideration.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch, narrated by Michael Page

Writing Prompt: Take something that you do, something unique to you (and perhaps to your gender), and hand it to somebody in your book who appears unqualified for that task. Then qualify them for it.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.
Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.
*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible® Free Trial Details
Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation.

Writing Excuses 6.16: Gender Roles--Black, White, and Gray [ 20:12 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (15996)

Patrick Rothfuss joins Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard at WorldCon 69, where we recorded before a live, enthusiastic audience.

The topic? Suspension of disbelief, specifically, how to get your readers to do this. Patrick leads us off with verisimilitude, and how the reader will accept the fantastic if you’re presenting the mundane in a believable way. We talk about laying groundwork, about Chekov’s gun, the promises we have to make to our readers, and the dramatic tool bathos.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss, narrated by Nick Podehl.

Writing Prompt: Make the reader believe one impossible thing. If you can’t think of something on your own, start with teleportation.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.
Visit http://AudiblePodcast.com/excuse for a free trial membership*.
*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

Audible® Free Trial Details
Get your first 14 days of the AudibleListener® Gold membership plan free, which includes one audiobook credit. After your 14 day trial, your membership will renew each month for just $14.95 per month so you can continue to receive one audiobook credit per month plus members-only discounts on all audio purchases. A very small number of titles are more than one credit. Cancel your membership before your free trial period is up and you will not be charged. Thereafter, cancel anytime, effective the next billing cycle. Any unused audiobook credits will be lost at cancellation.

Writing Excuses 6.14: Suspension of Disbelief [ 19:45 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (17963)