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 7.17: Guns and Fiction [ 16:55 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (18206)

Microcasting again! The questions we fielded from the Twitterverse include:

• How do you hold the whole story in your head when it’s a thousand pages long?
• What steps do you use when creating a character?
• As an outliner, when do you start putting in the details?
• How do you patch plot holes?
• How do you come up with names?
• Is there one writing skill you’d like to get better at?
• Writing groups: what do you look for?

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Hard Magic, by Larry Correia, narrated by Bronson Pinchot

As Promised, Here is a Link: The Everchanging Book of Names

Speaking of the Twitterverse: The Writing Excuses team is BrandSanderson, MaryRobinette, HowardTayler, JohnCleaver (Dan), and MonkeySloth (Producer Jordo).

Writing Prompt: Someone has to save the world from an intercontinental ballistic hairball, but their keyboard layout has been changed.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.
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*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

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Writing Excuses 6.9: Microcasting 2 Electric Boogaloo [ 17:48 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (18090)

Okay, let’s have some fun. Not that we weren’t having fun for the previous 150+ episodes, mind you. But this is extra-fun.

Brandon, Dan, and Howard take the urban fantasy writing prompt about big-box stores and decide to brainstorm a story out of it. When we begin this ‘cast all we have is the prompt.

Then we brainstorm, plowing through setting, character, conflict, and story.

By the end of the ‘cast we’re ready to make a pitch to an editor and sell the book.

Okay, maybe not. But the book is totally ready for us to sit down and write. Or, better yet, for YOU to sit down and write.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Kitty and the Midnight Hour, by Carrie Vaughn, narrated by Marguerite Gavin

Writing Prompt: Take what we’ve done in this ‘cast and try to come up with a plot and an ending. Alternatively, take the list of competition films from the most recent Sundance Film Festival and pick six that are somehow part of a Fey plot.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.
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*Note: From the Audible website, here are the terms of the free membership. Read the fine print, please!

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Writing Excuses 5.35: Brainstorming Urbain Fantasy [ 18:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (17060)

Question: What does Writing Excuses have in common with Isaac Asimov, Michael Whelan, and Batman?

Answer: We’ve all been nominated at some point for a Hugo award! (Just not all in the same year.)

Specifically: “Writing Excuses Season 4″ by Brandon Sanderson, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells, produced by Jordan Sanderson, has been nominated for the 2011 “Best Related Work” Hugo. We’re honored, and we’re thrilled.

In very, very related news, Dan Wells has been nominated for the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer, and Howard Tayler’s Schlock Mercenary: Massively Parallel has been nominated for Best Graphic Story.

Several former guests here on Writing Excuses have also been honored with nominations. Larry Correia was nominated for a Campbell Award, Eric James Stone’s “That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made” is up for Best Novelette, Moshe Feder is up for Best Editor, Long Form, Mary Robinette Kowal’s “For Want of a Nail” is up for Best Short Story, and Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius Volume 10 is up for Best Graphic Story.

The voting will take place between now and sometime in July, and the winners will be announced at the World Science Fiction Convention in Reno.

For a full list of Hugo and Campbell award nominees, as well as information about voting, past awards, and the history of the award itself visit thehugoawards.org. There’s also a list here on the Worldcon site.

Note: We’ll have a regular episode of Writing Excuses up in an hour or so. Don’t worry — we’re not using this nomination as an excuse to depart from our regular schedule of leaving you out of excuses.

Hugo Nomination Acceptance 2011 [ 7:55 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9604)

We begin our discussion of Urban Fantasy with a discussion of definitions, which quickly devolves into an argument over what we are actually supposed to be talking about. Moving right along, we explore what sorts of things we find in an Urban Fantasy, and what sorts of rules these stories usually abide by.

Dan tells us how he set about writing the John Cleaver books, which certainly qualify as Urban Fantasy, Howard tackles the burning question of where one might start in the project of building a mythos, and Brandon explains
his own Urban Fantasy projects, including one failure from which we can all learn an important lesson.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Dresden Files Book One: Storm Front, by Jim Butcher, narrated by James Marsters.

Writing Prompt: . Give us an Urban Fantasy in which the point of origin for your crossover is big box store retail spaces which somehow breach the boundary between our world and the magical one.

This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by Audible.
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*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 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 5.32: Urban Fantasy [ 17:07 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (16667)

Dan and Howard are joined by Larry Correia and Robison Wells (Rob is the younger of the Wells brothers), and with the enthusiastic support of a live audience at LTUE they discuss writing action.

Larry’s books are made of action (and no small amount of gunplay.) Howard’s comics feature mercenaries (and sometimes elephants.) Robison’s latest book, Variant, doesn’t have any experienced fighters in it, but the characters still manage to get into action-oriented trouble. Dan’s action scenes are personal, visceral, and confusing. And so we talk about how we do it.

We also talk about how we’ve seen others do it in books and in film. We discuss the scene/sequel format, blocking, and how “write what you know” need not be an obstacle to writing about sword fighting against dragon. Or Howard’s dog.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia, narrated by Oliver Wyman

Writing Prompt: Write an action sequence that you can appropriately title “Flaming Slapfight.”

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 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 5.30: Writing Action Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (17595)

Your hosts here at Writing Excuses have tried to answer the “how to get published” question before. We’re going to try again.

In this episode we begin with a discussion of New Media. Welcome to the Age of the Internet, everybody! The Web is now “old media.” When we say “New Media” we’re talking about social media — Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, user-generated content, and countless blogging tools.  After a brief warning about embracing the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, Brandon, Dan, and Howard provide some examples for how these tools can help you.

We talk a bit about some submission practices that you should not practice, most of which Stacy Whitman covered with us back in episodes 12 and 13 of  Season 1. Then we throw you some off-the-wall suggestions that might get you published. Some of these cost real money, and none of them come with guarantees that they’ll work. We restate our firm belief that the best strategies for getting published hinge upon writing excellently and networking with people who write.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss. Howard owes him a plug after last month’s epic faux-pas at Penguicon. After bringing it up in this context, Howard probably owes him ANOTHER one.

Writing Prompt: For some reason, 1000 years in the future the most cost-effective publishing involves writing on human skin…

Blame for That Horrible Mental Picture of Howard Dressed as an Elf Sans Pants: Brandon Sanderson owns that blame, down to the last mote of scowling-with-eyes-averted disapproval.

Why Mayan Calendars Predict The End of The World in 2012: seventeen minutes in…

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 4.20: Strategies for Getting Published [ 19:05 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (17196)

Larry Correia is either the guy who did everything wrong and then broke into publishing anyway, or he’s the exception who proves the rule. He self-published Monster Hunter International, and then got picked up by Baen Books.

If you’re considering self-publishing, this is the podcast for you.

This week’s episode of Writing Excuses is brought to you by Scenting the Dark by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Writing Prompt: A self-published book becomes a threat that will end the world…

Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 21: Pitfalls of Self Publishing with Larry Correia [ 15:54 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (13418)

Larry Correia, whose debut novel Monster Hunter International hit the market this summer, joins us for a discussion of plot-driven vs. character driven fiction. We start with a definition of terms and a discussion of the battlefield. Then we dive into the nuts and bolts of how to write what it is you want to be writing.

This week’s Writing Excuses is brought to you by Audible. Head over to Audiblepodcast.com/excuse for a free audio book and a 14-day trial. And at our recommendation, try out Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

Writing Prompt: Come up with a plot-driven story, and then try to make it good with boring characters.

Writing Excuses Season 3 Episode 20: The Difference Between Character Drive and Plot Drive Stories [ 15:51 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (16536)