John Brown joins us again, and tells us that fiction “is all about guiding an emotional response in a reader.” We begin with a discussion of depression, which John (like many of us) had to deal with. He tells us about the paths for emotional response, and how a beginning writer can end up in the depths of depression just by looking at the work of successful writers.

But working through that, especially with cognitive therapy, can provide the writer with fantastic tools for informing his or her writing. And those tools are really why you’re here. Listen closely!

Writing Prompt: Give us villainous heroes, romance, and something that evokes terror.

 

 Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 19: Emotion in Fiction with John Brown [15:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9621)

Aside from being a delightful author and a Campbell award winner, Mary Robinette Kowal is a professional puppeteer. She joined us at WorldCon 67 in Montreal, and totally schooled us in front of a live audience.

I mean it. TOTALLY SCHOOLED.

If you want to learn something new about writing, and I mean something really NEW you need to listen to Mary talk about puppetry. You can’t see the perpetual looks of astonishment and epiphany us jaded professionals wore during this recording, but I assure you they were there. We learned so much from Mary we decided to record two more episodes with her. Not because we felt like you, our listeners, necessarily deserved it. We wanted these recordings for ourselves.

Mary required us to share. It was part of the deal.

 

 Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 14: The Four Principles of Puppetry that Apply to Writing with Mary Robinette Kowal [14:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9430)

Howard here, folks. On behalf of the entire Writing Excuses team I’d like to apologize in advance for that which you are about to receive.

You know how sometimes one of those crazy thoughts seems like a good idea, and the more you talk about it the better the idea seems, and so then you actually do it and are left looking back at it with a mixture of awe and horror? This episode is like that.

Brandon thought it would be funny to have  a discussion about dialects in which Dan and I actually do dialects. So we did.

We’re all very sorry. In the spirit of eponymy, I shall now write an excuse: “It was late, and we were so tired that we thought this would be funny.”

 

 Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 13: Dialects and n World Jargon [17:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9601)

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 (9467)

What are dramatic breaks? We open this episode with Howard very genuinely playing Doctor Watson to Brandon’s Holmes, which is amusing because as it turns out, Howard uses dramatic breaks every day. Simply put they are the points in the narrative, typically at the end of a chapter, where we cut to another scene. Sometimes we are shifting perspective, sometimes we are advancing the clock, and sometimes we’re merely pausing to take a breath.

What are we looking for in a dramatic break? How do we identify the right place to cut away from one group of characters and focus on others? How do we avoid doing it the same way every time?

And so we discuss those stopping points and the starting points that follow them. We cover the flow of time and the flow of story. We talk about delivering satisfying installments. We even hang from a cliff or two.

Meanwhile…

This episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by XDM: X-Treme Dungeon Mastery by Tracy & Curtis Hickman, illustrated by Howard Tayler. Autograph editions are now on pre-order!

Writing Prompt: Write a story in which Howard hates elephants and dramatically breaks one.

 

 Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 6: Dramatic Breaks [17:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8987)

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 (9091)

Don’t you just hate it when things unfold out of order? Why do writers do that?

We explain why they do it, and how they do it, and then we discuss how to avoid some common mistakes. Non-linear storytelling is inherently risky, after all. Maybe not as risky as jumping ahead two episodes in a non-serial podcast schedule, but it’s still life on the edge.

Writing Prompt: Write a story about a flashback that is completely false…

This week’s episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by  Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson, now available in hardback from TOR.

(If you’re waiting for Episodes 2 and 3, we’ll flash back to them in due time…)

 

 Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 4: Non Linear Story Telling [16:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9202)

Welcome to Season 3 of Writing Excuses! With eighteen hours and fourteen months of podcasting history behind us, it seems appropriate for us to talk about history, and how to write it.

We talk about the iceberg principle — 90% of the history stuff you write never gets seen by the reader, it’s just there to support the 10% that they do see, the “tip of the iceberg” — and why for some writers it’s just not the right ratio. We also discuss Worldbuilder’s Disease — none of the writing you’re doing is prose for the novel — and how to avoid it while still knuckling down and doing the work.

And then (after a shiny commercial break) we knuckle down and talk about writing history, making it interesting, finding conflict, and avoiding oversimplified causality (“monocausationalism.”)

Writing Prompt: Write an encyclopedia article about a war that has 5 distinct causes. Identify and justify each of them.

 

 Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 1: World building History [16:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9476)

And here we are, at the final episode of Writing Excuses, Season 2. As promised, this episode is going to be super-useful to new writers, but it’s going to be extra-super-useful to one new writer in particular, Brandon’s nameless friend who listened to 9 hours of Writing Excuses podcasts and is now too overwhelmed to write.

Have you ever wondered why we only ‘cast for 15 minutes (give or take, usually give, but still…) each week? It’s because you’re not supposed to be sitting there at the computer listening to hours upon hours of advice. You’re supposed to be writing.

For this next fourteen minutes and forty-seven seconds we explain how to make that happen.

Writing Prompt: Write a story about Brandon’s friend Nameless

 

 Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 33: How to not be Overwhelmed [14:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9081)

This the third in our series of retrospective episodes. The most important thing Dan learned this year? Being a full-time author is a lot different than he thought it would be.

How different? What was Dan expecting? Was he really imagining silk pajamas and a notebook computer on the beach? We talk about the types of non-writing work that we’ve found ourselves doing, and why those things are so important to us and to our careers. We discuss how our publishers’ schedules impact our own, and why writers are often expected to drop whatever they’re doing in order to handle something for their publisher.

During our discussion we mention a new local novelist Aprilynne Pike, whose debut book Wings is available now, and made #6 on the NYT Bestsellers List for Children’s Chapter Books.

Episode 32 has been brought to you by “A Snack.” But hurry! We don’t pause for long!

Writing Prompt: Write the first page of a story, stop, write a first page of a different story and then go back and finish the first story.

 

 Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 32: The Most Important Thing Dan Learned Last Year [14:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8248)