Writing Excuses 7.10: Importance of Criticism, with David Brin
David Brin joined Mary and Dan at World Fantasy to pound the importance of criticism into our heads. Our episode opens with a discussion of what your first book should be (a murder mystery) and why...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.9: Microcasting
Microcasting! This is a fancy word for “Q&A” — we pick some questions from Twitter, and do what amounts to nine mini-episodes of Writing Excuses with a side of bacon. This time around the questions...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.8: The City as a Character
Mary and Dan discuss using a city as a character with Sarah Pinborough, for whom London is an important setting and one of her favorite places. We talk about the importance of being accurate, and how a...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.7: Historical Fantasy
We begin with a definition of Historical Fantasy that allows us narrow the topic and differentiate it from Alternate History. When we say historical fantasy we mean “adding magic to a historical period...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.6: Behind the Marshmallow
Poor Mary. Even after recording an entire season with Brandon, Dan, and Howard, she still scratches her head sometimes and asks herself “why?” “Why does Dan say ‘these marshmallows are delicious’ in a...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.5: Sensory Writing
Dan and Mary were joined by Sam Sykes at World Fantasy, and invited him to talk about sensory writing, which he had recently discussed in a workshop. The heart of the discussion is which senses...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.4: Brevity
Brevity! Use fewer words! After the obligatory “we-are-going-to-cut-this-short-after-the-intro” joke, we talk about how we can be appropriately brief, even in the context of writing epic fantasy. Mary...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.3: Fauna and Flora
Animals and plants, round two! We begin this episode with examples where we think people did their flora and fauna wrong, or poorly, or at least in ways we can poke easy holes in. Our examples include:...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.2: World Building Flora and Fauna
Let’s build the plants and animals for your science fiction or fantasy book! We begin with a discussion about naming, and about deciding how much evolutionary biology to put into creating cool...
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 7.54: Four Ways the Industry is Changing
Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard each take a look at some changing aspect of the industry, and how they're reacting to that change.
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.53: Secret History
How is "Men in Black" like "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter?" This week on Writing Excuses we talk about Secret History, and how to do it well.
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.52: Microcasting
A fast-paced Q&A covering discouragement, magic systems, ideas, and our embarrassing early projects.
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.51: Brainstorming with Mary
Mary invites Brandon, Dan, and Howard to brainstorm a story with her.
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.50: Outlining the Mary Way
Mary Robinette Kowal schools Brandon, Dan, and Howard with her outlining system.
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.49: Beginnings Revisited
We've talked about where to start. Now Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard talk about how to start -- what goes "in" when you're going "in late, out early."
View ArticleNaNoWriMo 2012: Bonus Episode 4, with Mary & Brandon
Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal provide last-minute writing advice to you NaNoWriMo'ers out there...
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.48: Pixar Rules for Writing a Compelling Story
Brandon, Dan, Howard, and Mary review some of Emma Coats' "Pixar Rules" for storytelling
View ArticleNaNoWriMo 2012: Bonus Episode 3, with Howard
Howard Tayler gives NaNoWriMo participants a pep-talk on their way into the last week of the month.
View ArticleWriting Excuses 7.47: Raising the Stakes
What are the things that matter to your characters? What things matter to your readers? After we get the obligatory ambiguity out of the way, we settle into talking about the "stakes" and the...
View Article
