11.03: 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 Article13.22: Character Arcs
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard When Mary says we could do fifteen different episodes on character arcs, she’s being conservative. Notwithstanding, we set out to talk meaningfully about...
View Article13.23: Internal Conflicts
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Amal, and Maurice Internal conflicts, simply put, are problems your characters have with themselves. In this episode we address the ways in which writers can build stories...
View Article13.34: Q&A on Character Arcs
Your Hosts: Brandon, Valynne, Dan, and Howard You had questions. We came up with answers. The questions are below: How do you fulfill promises about character arcs without being cliché? How do you...
View Article13.40: Fixing Character Problems, Part I
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard This is the first of two episodes in which we’ll talk about how we, your hosts, fix the problems we’ve identified with the characters in our work. Credits:...
View Article13.41: Fixing Character Problems, Part II
Your Hosts: Brandon, Amal, Mary, and Maurice This is the second of our pair of episodes in which we talk about how we, your hosts, fix the problems we’ve identified with the characters in our work....
View Article13.47: Q&A on Fixing Characters
Your Hosts: Brandon, Valynne, Dan, and Howard You had questions about fixing character problems. We had had answers! Here are the questions: How do you fix character voices when you find out that two...
View Article13.49: How to Finish
Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Amal, and Maurice Last week we talked about character death. This week we talk about other, less fatal ways in which a character story can be finished, and how we,...
View ArticleWriting 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
Brandon, Mary, Dan, & Howard discuss putting character motivations on the page in support of plot, character arcs, and the story in general.
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.1 When Good Characters Go Bad
How do you take a good character and make them evil? And why would you want to do this? Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard answer that second question first, and then walk you through the process of doing...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 8.30: Writing Reluctant Characters
The cast discusses how to make reluctant, non-proactive, non-go-getting characters interesting to read about.
View ArticleWriting Excuses 9.19: Showing Emotion
How to go about showing a character's emotions without them seeming emo.
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?
Are we making progress? How do we communicate that to the reader?
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...
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