Writing Excuses

Writing Excuses 7.20: Cathartic Horror

Writing Excuses — Mon, 14 May 2012 04:26:12 +0000

Michael R. Collings and his son Michaelbrent Collings join us live at UVU to talk with us about cathartic horror. In particular, we talk about how the catharsis is part of what makes horror such a delightful genre. Michael leads with an example from his own writing, a novel called The Slab. Brandon talks about the physiological response, and Mary compares the cautionary aspects of horror to the early (read: pre-Disney) fairy tales. Dan cautions us against didacticism, and explains about how the underlying story is usually quite different from what’s on the page. Michaelbrent further explains how our personal catharses empower us to write good stories and invoke similar responses from our readers.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Slab, by Michael R. Collings, narrated by Andy Bowyer

Writing Prompt: Adapt the unadaptable fairy tale Mary introduced us to (the one about the little old lady who catches on fire and dies.)

Free Shot: No, Howard wasn’t even in the room for this episode.

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Writing Excuses 7.19: Q&A at UVU

Writing Excuses — Mon, 07 May 2012 03:33:16 +0000

James Dashner joins us for a Q&A at Utah Valley University during Life, The Universe, and Everything.

The first question starts out amazingly rough, but the 12-year-old asking it manages to stick the landing. The questions include:

Why is the ARC of James’ first book so different from the later books?
How do you handle paragraph- and sentence-level edits?
How do you plot your stories?
How do you craft endings that are both satisfying, and leave the reader wanting more?
What do you do when your compelling villain threatens to take over the whole book?

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Everneath, by Brody Ashton, narrated by Amy Rubinate

Writing Prompt: You get kidnapped and put in an asylum for the criminally sane.

That Panel Howard Talked About: It’s actually at the end of Massively Parallel, and you can look at it right here.

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Writing Excuses 7.18: Discovering your Voice

Writing Excuses — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:22:36 +0000

James Artimus Owen joined us in front of the live audience at LTUE in February where he was the Guest of Honor. He wanted to talk with us about “voice,” and specifically how to find yours. We talk about the paradox — voice is critical, but new authors who focus how to develop theirs often end up flubbing it.

Each of us gives examples from our own work, and the result is (hopefully) encouraging. You can find your own voice, and if you focus on learning the tools of good writing that discovery is going to come quite naturally. The magic lies in recognizing it.

But we have more to offer than just platitudes. There are plenty of tips and tricks contained herein, so have a nice, long listen or two.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Here, There Be Dragons, by James A. Owen, narrated by Stephen Langton.

The Cookie That Can Only Be Baked In My Brain: A meme originally baked in the brain of the inimitable R. Stevens. Here, then, is the chocolate chip of credit where it is due.

Writing Prompt: Find a writing buddy, swap stories halfway through, and then compare notes.

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Writing Excuses 7.17: Guns and Fiction

Writing Excuses — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 04:30:28 +0000

Larry Correia joins Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard in front of a live audience at LTUE on Utah Valley University campus. Larry knows guns inside and out, and talks to us about the mistakes that writers make when putting firearms into their stories.

Most of this is simple stuff, or at least it’s simple to fix, but that doesn’t change the fact that we get it wrong all the time. Have a listen, follow Larry’s advice, and get your guns right.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Spellbound: Book II of the Grimnoir Chronicles, by Larry Corriea, narrated by Bronson Pinchot

Writing Prompt: Give us a character who, after reading one Larry Correia novel, goes out and procures a grenade launcher.

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Writing Excuses 7.16: Continuing with Mary’s Outline

Writing Excuses — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:29:17 +0000

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more… only without a big speech before the charge.

We’re still tearing into Mary’s first novel outline in this second part of a VERY SPECIAL two-part session of Writing Excuses. Mary reads from her outline, then Brandon, Dan, and Howard look for high-level problems like inactive protagonists, missing character arcs, or other structural issues.

As promised, this episode runs long. Hopefully you’re not in that much of a hurry, because clearly we weren’t smart enough to plow through all this material inside of 20 minutes.

Liner Notes: That link up there is the same as this one right here.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay, narrated by Simon Vance.

Writing Prompt: Give us a monkey, a bronze pot, a baby, and pizza in completely different situations than what we heard in Mary’s outline.

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Writing Excuses 7.15: Editing Mary’s Outline

Writing Excuses — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 01:20:44 +0000

Mary Robinette Kowal graciously loaned us an outline she was working on in 2003. For this podcast, Mary reads from her outline, Brandon interrupts her, and we dissect. This is a brutal process. Know, fair listener, that we love Mary a lot.

And LOVE HURTS.

In completely unrelated news, Writing Excuses Season Six has been nominated for a Hugo Award for “Best Related Work.” You may feel free to extend congratulations and good wishes in the comments below.

Liner Notes: Want to follow along in Mary’s outline? Here it is!

Book of the Week: Glamour in Glass, by Mary Robinette Kowal, releases this week! We’ve put links to it over here on our brand new Book of the Week page!

Writing Prompt: Take an existing folk tale and re-tell it using the Dora the Explorer formula for quests.

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Writing Excuses 7.14: Writing Excuses

Writing Excuses — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Today’s episode of Writing Excuses is about writing excuses — all those handy tricks that the great authors use to prevent themselves from finishing any book before its time (let alone its deadline.)

Get out the vacuum, grab some Q-tips and a bottle of alcohol, and make today the day that you fill your life with the sense of wonder that will permeate your book forty years from now.

“Here, kitty kitty…”

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Dummies, by Rob Wilson and Rhena Branch, narrated by Simon Slater.

Writing Prompt: Write a series of 16 numerals. This is probably Jordo’s credit card number, or at least one of them (in one of the many universes where he is still allowed to use credit cards.) Go shopping! Oh, you’ll need the expiration date! It’s April 1st, 2012.

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Writing Excuses 7.13: Man Vs. Nature

Writing Excuses — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 23:00:06 +0000

It’s a “Howard is clueless” episode! One of us, we won’t name any names, didn’t take enough English classes to know the basic conflict archetypes — Man vs. Man, Man vs. Self, and Man vs. Nature. In this episode we focus on that third one.

One example of Man vs. Nature is Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey. Another is Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. In both of these cases, while Man vs Nature is the main plot, Man vs. Man sub-plots keep the story moving.

We talk about the strengths of this type of story, some of the pitfalls to avoid, lots of examples of the archetype, and then we focus on what you can do to tell this sort of story well.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey, narrated by Dick Hill

Writing Prompt: “Jack Black stranded alone on an alien planet.” Your challenge? Make us like the main character and want him to live…

New Word of the Week: “Stereotropical” – a mashup of “stereotypical” and “trope.” Use it when your meaning can’t possibly be confused with “tropical islands in stereo.”

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Writing Excuses 7.12: Writing the Omniscient Viewpoint

Writing Excuses — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:00:49 +0000

Let’s talk omniscience, because we’re TOTALLY that smart. Specifically, we’re talking about the omniscient viewpoints. This is the POV from which Tolkien wrote, but we see it a lot less often these days. Has it fallen out of fashion, or does it just not work well?

Generally speaking, the omniscient viewpoint is where the narrator can see all of the action, all of the character thoughts, and is not limited to which character we’re following at any given time. We break this down a little, talking about the different types or styles of omniscient POV, discussing the strengths of each, and offering examples from Tolkien, Robert Jordan, Tom Clancy, Terry Pratchett, David Eddings, James P. Hogan, Frank Herbert and others (including some of our own stuff.)

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Acacia, by David Anthony Durham, narrated by Dick Hill

Writing Prompt Two-fer: 1) Stick an omniscient narrator scene in between two 3rd-person limited scenes. 2) Have two characters carry on a dialog which is out of sync with what each of them are thinking.

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Writing Excuses 7.11: More Microcasting

Writing Excuses — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:43:09 +0000

It’s again time for us to do a Q&A by any other name!

Is it better to include romance, horror, SF, or other genre elements to flesh out a story, or should the story stand alone?
Any tips for developing an idea without getting caught in Worldbuilder’s Disease?
Any NaNo WriMo tips? (yes.)
What did you to do build an audience before you got published and famous and stuff?
How do you create sub-plots without overshadowing the main plot?
What are the most important things you learned as writers during 2011?
How do you stay motivated (especially during editing) when it seems like everything you wrote is crap?

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Persuasion, by Jane Austen. Note that there are lots of available recordings. We recommend something unabridged, like the version linked here.

Writing Prompt: Listener Bill Housely provided this one — a lone woman who runs an orbital refueling post makes first contact when some aliens arrive in desperate need of fuel.

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