Writing Excuses

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, as writers, can tell when we're done with a character arc. Credits: This episode was recorded by Andrew Twiss, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard The characters we create are not all destined for long lives. Sure, some are, but a great many of them are on paths that will end in an abrupt fatality of one kind or another, and in this episode we'll talk about how we choose which characters to put on those paths, and how those paths might be shaped. We also talk about characters who walk perilous paths and emerge unscathed (sometimes thanks less to their pluck and wit, and more due to plot armor.) Liner Notes:"The Worshipful Society of Glovers" can be found here at Uncanny Magazine . Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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 of them are too similar? How can you tell if a character is, in fact, the problem? How do you maintain interest in a character who is largely inactive? How do you write interesting bad guys when your only POV characters are the good guys? How do you give meaningful challenges to a powerful character? How can you make a normal, everyday character interesting? How do you edit an existing manuscript to give characters interests which mesh with the plot? Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson and mastered by Alex Jackson.

Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, and Dan, with special guests Bart Smith and Ben Hewett When we talk about space travel we're usually talking about rocket scientists and astronauts. In this episode we spoke with our guests Bart Smith and Ben Hewett, about the "unsexy" (read: possibly boring but don't be deceived) side of the space program—budgeting, logistics, and procurement. RFI and RFP, with toilets, hammers, and business cards; that's this episode. (For those unfamiliar with the above TLAs [three letter acronyms], RFI and RFP stand for Request for Information and Request for Proposal.)  

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Mercedes Lackey NaNoWriMo 2018 is half-way over today. Are you stuck? Do you need to get unstuck? Mercedes Lackey joined us at GenCon Indy back in 2017 to talk about writer's block, and how it's very likely a symptom of something else. In this episode we discuss the interpretation of those symptoms, and how we go about solving the root problems.

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Amal, and Maurice Narration is that stuff which tells your story, but isn't dialog. It's the voice of your narrator, and it might be multiple voices depending on how you're handling point of view. In this episode we'll talk about the things you can do to challenge yourself and level up your narration.

Your Mini-Episode Hosts: Amal El-Mohtar and Maurice Broaddus, with Special Asides from Mary Robinette Kowal We're a week in to NaNoWriMo. If you're scared of it, Amal is here to tell you that it's okay to feel that way, Maurice is here with the encouraging words "consequence-free."

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard As writers of speculative fiction we are frequently tasked with writing a species or race of alien people. In this episode we talk about some of the tricks we use to create non-human characters in ways that make them both comprehensible and compelling, and the pitfalls we seek to avoid in the process. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson and mastered by Alex Jackson.

Your Mini-Episode Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard Back in 2017 we recorded a bonus episode for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and then forgot to air it. Here, then, in the spirit of never throwing anything away, is a spot of motivation which is both timely AND one year late.

Your Hosts: Howard, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Amal Many of us write characters who know more than we know, and/or who think faster than we do. Writing those characters is tricky. In this episode we talk about our own tricks, and the tricks we've seen others use. Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard, with special space-guest Kjell Lindgren Kjell Lindgren, flight surgeon, Expedition 44/45, joined us for an episode that perhaps should have been called "we ask the space-man all of the things." We asked him stuff that we wanted to know more about, and came away richer for the experience. If there's just one technical term worth bringing home from this episode, it's "expeditionary behavior." It's the sort of thing that can make us all richer for the experience. Credits: This episode was recorded by Benjamin Hewett at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and mastered by Alex Jackson at Writing Excuses Mission Control in Chicago. BONUS: NASA invited us back to be on THEIR show, Houston We Have a Podcast, and that episode went live about three days before this did. More Kjell Lindgren!

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. Credits: This episode was recorded by Andrew Twiss, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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: this episode was recorded by Dan Thompson and mastered by Alex Jackson

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Wendy Tolliver Wendy skis, and snowboards, and  writes YA novels. She is also the parent of three, one of whom suffers from mental illness. She joined us to talk about how writers can do a better job of depicting it, and how to avoid the pitfalls and the harmful cliches. Credits: This episode was recorded live at Salt Lake Fan X by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

Your Hosts: Brandon, Valynne, Dan, and Howard We begin by making a useful distinction between alpha and beta reader: the alpha reader is an industry professional, while the beta reader is a stand-in for the eventual audience of readers. We then set about discussing how to find alpha readers, and how to employ them in order to make your work better. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson

Your Hosts: Dan, Mary, Aliette, and Howard with special guest J.Y. Yang J.Y. Yang is a Hugo-nominated short story writer from Singapore who identifies as non-binary. They joined us to talk about this non-binary identification, and how writers can do a better job of depicting it (beyond simply using non-gendered pronouns.) Credits: This episode was recorded by Bert Grimm and mastered by Alex Jackson

Your Hosts: Brandon, Amal, Mary, and Maurice If you live in the northern hemisphere, inland, perhaps above the 40th parallel, you are probably quite sure that there are four distinct seasons. There are, however, many, many people for whom "seasons" are things that happen to other people. This is the conflict between your default and the rest of the world, and in this episode we'll talk about confronting your default. Credits: This episode was recorded by Andrew Twiss, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary, Dan, and Howard Tropes, archetypes, and even cliches are tools in our toolboxes. There's no avoiding them, but there are definitely ways to use them incorrectly. In this episode we'll talk about how we shake off our fear of using tropes through understanding how they work. Credits: This episode was recorded by Dan Thompson, and mastered by Alex Jackson.

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 subvert character tropes without betraying the reader? Do you need to complete each character arc in a single story featuring multiple characters? What separates an iconic character from a caricature? Have you ever had an iconic character necessarily become a character in need of an arc? How do you continue a character's story after they've completed their original arc? How much does a character need to change in their arc?

Your Hosts: Howard and Dan, with special guest Lawrence Schoen Lawrence Schoen, clinical psychologist, cognitive hypnotist, small press publisher, Klingon language expert, and novelist, joined us at GenCon Indy for a bonus episode about elephants and death. Howard and Lawrence both write uplifted elephants into their stories, and their stories also feature death as a theme, so this is a closer fit than it may seem to be at first blush. Liner Notes: This episode was recorded in 2016, and after falling through the cracks (thanks in no small part to being below the fold on a spreadsheet), was rescheduled to coincide with the release of Moons of Barsk, Lawrence's second novel in the uplifted-elephant setting. Credits: This episode was mastered by Alex Jackson, and was made possible by our Patreon supporters