Writing Excuses 5.29: Rewriting
We were fortunate enough to record two episodes with Tracy Hickman and Dave Wolverton at Life, The Universe, and Everything XXIX. In this second installment these masters of the craft school us on the...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 6.2: Internal Motivations
If you have to ask yourself “what’s my motivation?” when you’re sitting down to write, this isn’t the podcast for you. We’re talking about character motivation in this cast. Mary breaks it down into...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.1 When Good Characters Go Bad
Welcome to Writing Excuses Season 7! Let’s start with a trip to the dark side! How do you take a good character and make them evil? And why would you want to do this? Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 8.30: Writing Reluctant Characters
What’s a reluctant character? Well, it’s somebody who needs to be dragged along into the adventure, somebody who isn’t the sort of self-motivated, go-getter that we so often populate our books with....
View ArticleWriting Excuses 9.19: Showing Emotion
How do you go about writing a character showing their emotions without them sounding whiny (or whatever the “too-much” version of the appropriate emotion might be)? Adding to the difficulty of the...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 9.49: Hiding the Open Grave
So, you’re planning to kill somebody, but you don’t want anyone to see it coming. How do you make that happen? We begin by talking about the hints that writers inadvertently drop, and why they drop...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 10.31: How Do I Control the Reader’s Sense of Progress?
This month’s Master Class episodes focus on pacing, and we’re dividing the concept of pacing into two parts: the first is the sense of progress within the story, and the second is the sense of the...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 10.41: Your Character’s Moral Pendulum
Brad Beaulieu and Jaym Gates join us from the GenCon Indy Writing Symposium to talk about good versus evil, and how your character might swing between the two. And it’s all about that swing. Moral grey...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 10.44: How Do I Fix What is Broken?
November is “Revision” month here in the Writing Excuses Season 10 Master Class, so while many of you may be tempted by NaNoWriMo, there’s a different kind of work to be done… Delia Sherman joins us...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 10.48: Project in Depth, The Devil’s Only Friend
Spoiler Alert! We’ll be discussing the latest John Cleaver book from Dan Wells with author, podcaster, and unrepentant bacon-lover Dan Wells! If you haven’t read it, and you want to be surprised by it,...
View Article11.03: Layering The Elemental Genres
For our second Elemental Genre episode we discuss using the concept of Elemental Genre to help you manage sub-plots, character arcs, and genre mashups. We’ve each used the tool in these ways, and we...
View Article11.40: Elemental Drama
The word “drama” gets thrown around a lot. What do we mean when we use “drama” as an elemental genre? For us, Elemental Drama focuses on one character’s transformation, and how that transformation...
View Article11.43: Elemental Drama Q&A, with Tananarive Due
Our third Elemental Drama episode is a Q&A, featuring Tananarive Due. The questions are from the attendees at the Writing Excuses Workshop and Retreat: Rather than having a protagonist change...
View Article12.37: Subplots
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley What makes a plot a subplot? Must subplots and main plots be linked by something more binding than the actual binding of the book? In this episode we...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 9.19: Showing Emotion
How do you go about writing a character showing their emotions without them sounding whiny (or whatever the “too-much” version of the appropriate emotion might be)? Adding to the difficulty of the...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 9.49: Hiding the Open Grave
So, you’re planning to kill somebody, but you don’t want anyone to see it coming. How do you make that happen? We begin by talking about the hints that writers inadvertently drop, and why they drop...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 10.31: How Do I Control the Reader’s Sense of Progress?
This month’s Master Class episodes focus on pacing, and we’re dividing the concept of pacing into two parts: the first is the sense of progress within the story, and the second is the sense of the...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 10.41: Your Character’s Moral Pendulum
Brad Beaulieu and Jaym Gates join us from the GenCon Indy Writing Symposium to talk about good versus evil, and how your character might swing between the two. And it’s all about that swing. Moral grey...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 10.44: How Do I Fix What is Broken?
November is “Revision” month here in the Writing Excuses Season 10 Master Class, so while many of you may be tempted by NaNoWriMo, there’s a different kind of work to be done… Delia Sherman joins us...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 10.48: Project in Depth, The Devil’s Only Friend
Spoiler Alert! We’ll be discussing the latest John Cleaver book from Dan Wells with author, podcaster, and unrepentant bacon-lover Dan Wells! If you haven’t read it, and you want to be surprised by it,...
View Article